In The Eye of the Beholder: Unaware
by silver ruffian
Summary: You be good now,” she whispers, and if Dean had been in his right mind he would’ve laughed like hell at the irony of that. Dean Winchester returns to earth from hell just in time for the Apocalypse. Winged!Dean fic. Multi-chap
1. Amazing Grace

Author's Notes: Any folks out there with a Winged!Dean and Protective!Sam kink? This is ninety five percent complete. Meant to post it earlier, but I forgot. Let me know what you think.

It's an AU all right: Gordon and the Jesus Guy are alive in this one. Be warned: there's cursing, het sex, violence, rough language, weirdness in this thing. Song lyrics – Amazing Grace; dialogue paraphrased from episode summary of "Bad Day at Bad Rock" from Jensen Ross Ackles Fans, courtesy of Aurelia.

Summary: "You be good now," she whispers, and if Dean had been in his right mind he would've laughed like hell at the irony of _that_.

_**In The Eye of the Beholder: Unaware**_

_**By silver ruffian**_

_**Part One**_

_**0**_

_**The first time, God drowns the world and him with it.**_

Floating face down in midnight black water, shimmering moonlight playing on the surface of the water at his back. Water fills his lungs, and the sound of the ocean roars and echoes in his ears. No shouting, no screaming. It's not so bad. Kind of restful, considering what went on before.

He'd survived the war, and now this. The others were blind. They couldn't see what Gabriel and Raphael were doing, and he couldn't understand_ why_ they didn't see what was going on. No one listened to each other, and it all got very ugly very quickly, and they ended up doing Heaven's work for them. They cut each other to ribbons, and all the others had to do was just stand back and watch.

It would be funny if it weren't so damned pathetic.

_**00**_

_**The second time he drowns in his own blood.**_

It's warm down there in the basement. Dean stands there, his pistol in his right hand, listening to the faint sizzle as the silver rounds eat their way into the flesh between the fugly's eyes.

He presses his hand against his belly, and his hand comes away slick and bloody, like a kindergartner's handprint in bright red paint. He can see his lifeline. Too short. Cut off. Fuck.

His fingers shake and the rest of his body follows.

Dean takes a deep hitching breath, and he gasps and coughs up blood. He takes an awkward step backward as his legs give out on him. Dean sits straight down, curiously graceful. His ass thumps against the concrete floor and he's suddenly so tired.

Won't hurt to rest. Just for a moment. Fugly's dead. It's all good.

Dean shivers again, despite his heavy leather jacket. He's cold, and the pearl handle of the Colt is too heavy to hold onto. He watches it slip from his fingers and it doesn't matter. None of this does. He leans one shoulder against the rough brick of the basement wall, and listens to his heart beat in his chest.

Slow, then slower.

Cold…it's so damn cold. He presses his lips together to keep his teeth from chattering but that doesn't work too well. He can't feel his arms and legs anymore and he's mouth-breathing heavily like he's just run a sprint.

He smells sulfur. Dogs barking in the distance, and the sound makes him shiver. Something dark hovers in the air in front of him, and he slowly raises his head. So tired…all he can do is blink.

" 'bout time…you showed…up…bitch…" Dean says out loud. A part of him recognizes the fact that he sounds dazed, that he's slurring his words. _Dude, that's not good._

She's a shadow flitting around him, a slight displacement of air down in that musty stale basement. She smiles, and the smile doesn't reach her eyes.

He doesn't flinch, doesn't react as she caresses the side of his face with her fingers. He barely feels it.

_Hullo, sweetness. I've been waiting for you._

She leans in and kisses him and when she draws back he tastes blood on his lips.

_**00**_

_She_ told him to stand there, so he stands there in that one spot. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back slightly as the warm fetid breeze flows over his naked skin.

Red sky overhead, backlit with flames and dark clouds, high-pitched screaming and shrieking that rises and falls with the wind currents, and it looks like the ground on the rocky red valley floor far below him is moving.

If he cared enough, if he squinted, he could see all those thousands upon thousands of bodies stretching all the way to the horizon jammed together, standing there, waiting, staring directly at him. He could see that if he cared enough to make the effort.

He doesn't. He stares at the multitude, uncaring, unimpressed. He's gotten used to the sulfur smell in the air, and he doesn't know if that's a good thing or not.

…_first-born…_

…_lead us, child, lead us…_

He catches whispers on the wind, words spoken not in English, but he can still somehow understand the meaning. The voices screech and rumble, unearthly sounds coming from throats that were once human.

…_other generations, old yellow eyes said… _

Some of them actually reach out towards him, grasping with their arms, tentacles, _whatever_, and Dean just stands there, his eyes slightly unfocused, staring at the far horizon.

Her mouth and skin tasted sweet and bitter, fresh strawberries mixed with dry brittle ashes. They fucked for what seemed like days at the crossroads, rocking into each other slowly, and he screamed out when she bit into his bare chest. Something pulled at the space between his shoulder blades and left him feeling breathless.

Her eyes turned blood red as she drew back and he wondered why she suddenly got this startled look on her face when she looked at him again.

_She_ comes slinking up now, wearing a different womanskin than she did when he first saw her. For a weird moment he has this image of a closet full of the damn things on hangers, just waiting for her to pick out one to wear.

Different skin this time, dark smooth caramel colored skin framed by long wavy black hair, but he'd recognize her anywhere. Her walk, her smell, the way her skin tasted. That bright malicious smile of hers, the vicious glint in her eyes.

She's not alone this time.

The other one is tall, huge, a roiling man shaped thundercloud with silvery blue eyes, flashes of lightning glimpsed at its core.

"The horde has spoken," the thundercloud thing rumbles, and she nods.

"Dean," she says, and it's just a word. She gently puts her fingers underneath his chin, turns his face towards her. He blinks, stares at her blankly.

"I sold your contract, dear. You belong to the Ursi Taku now." She leans forward and he shudders as her tongue swipes slowly at the shell of his ear. She smiles, bright and wicked sharp. "Pity. I did enjoy having you, but in these trying times, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do."

She leans forward, brushes her lips against his slowly, cards his short dark blond hair with slim fingers. She sees something like re-awakened pain and shadows in those wide green eyes, and she laughs, a nasty, sly sound. She knows _exactly_ what he's thinking.

Sooner or later everyone leaves him, and _she's_ no different than the rest.

"You be good now," she whispers, and if he'd been in his right mind he would've laughed like hell at the irony of _that_.

She walks away then, and she doesn't look back, her hips moving smoothly underneath that tight black leather dress like a scale trying to find its balance.

The thundercloud moves forward and settles around him. Dean doesn't struggle as hands come out of the darkness and examine his body. He doesn't flinch from their touch against his well-muscled freckled skin, doesn't even care enough to draw away. It's too hard to hold onto things like his name, and he's too tired to even try, so he doesn't. The last thing he remembers is an image.

Shaggy dark hair. Soulful puppy dog eyes.

"Sammy," Dean murmurs softly, and that's the last thing he says aloud for quite some time.

_**000**_

_**The third time's the charm…**_

"I think you're gonna wanna_ see_ this," the lesser Ursi Taku says uneasily. It keeps a safe distance away, mindful of what happened to the_ last_ bearer of bad news.

"_Now what_?" the greater Ursi Taku rumbles. It stretches up on its legs, like a grizzly bear, lightning crawling all over its surface, faces glimpsed through the boiling dark clouds. "We told you we wanted wings on this one. If you can't do that one simple thing…"

The lesser backs away towards the pit of dark water where they'd put the green eyed human in.

_What's within is revealed_, the lesser one thinks to himself_. Oh, shit…_

"Oh, he's got wings, all right," the lesser one mumbles, and it stands aside, still far enough away, hopefully out of reach, and lets the thing speak for itself.

The human kneels in the center of the dark water pit, naked, shoulders slumped slightly. He looks up, dull-eyed, impassive, as they approach. His wings _are_ impressive, even folded against his back. But…

They're _feathers_.

Not skin. Not a membrane.

Honest to Lucifer _feathers_.

Perfectly formed. A soft light blue.

"Nephilim…" the greater Ursi Taku rumbles. Its cloudskin ripples as it lashes out at the lesser, and the lesser one explodes into a hundred fragments, eyes bulging, mouths gaping in a silent scream. "Son of a misbegotten bitch…"

**A week later…**

Kubrick and Creddie get the call sometime past midnight. It's Ballard. Female hunter, crazy as a shithouse rat, but she does have some _mad_ hunting skills.

"Hey, Kubrick," she drawls, all low and soft, "soon as you can, head on out my way, will 'ya? I'm at the farmhouse, the one right off the I-9? Caught one'a those freaks that got outta the devil's gate. You saved my ass on that hunt down in Tucson, so I figure I owe ya one. You can get your licks in with this one, do the honors. We'll save some for ya."

Several hours and half a state later, Kubrick smells blood as soon as he walks into the barn. Blood, and the scent of something else. It's a faint smell, almost like roses, but there aren't any roses inside the barn. Just Ballard and three other hunters, all grim and purposeful.

And Dean Winchester, chained to the far wall.

Kubrick hears Ballard laugh, a high-pitched sound, and that was one thing (_the only thing?_ his mind asks dazedly) about the chick that always gave him the creeps. She must have been a hyena in another life.

Kubrick recognizes the kid right away. He's on his knees, barefoot, naked except for a pair of bloody, torn blue jeans. Thick heavy chain is wound around his neck, shoulders and arms. That heavy chain collar is the only thing keeping his head up. Winchester's green eyes are glazed over with pain, confusion, and something else that Kubrick can't identify. He's broken, so lost in his own world so that he doesn't seem to notice either newcomer.

Kubrick stands there, and he tries not to stare. It's been over eight months since he last laid eyes on Dean Winchester, and the only stupid thing that comes to Kubrick's mind is _what a difference eight months makes_.

The kid's hair has grown out, shoulder length, and it's lighter, sandy blonde almost. The other change in him is so huge that Kubrick's mind refuses to wrap itself around what he's looking at, but he can't deny it, and he feels all the spit in his mouth dry up as his throat closes up.

Dean Winchester's got _wings_.

Feathered wings.

They're massive, a soft light blue color splattered with streaks and globs of red paint.

Scratch _that_. _Not paint_.

_Blood_.

The wings are pinned to the wall with four thick wooden stakes, and whoever did_ that_ wasn't too precise or delicate, either. It's the work of a butcher who obviously doesn't give a fuck. Kid won't be flying again any time soon, if _ever_.

There's a large wooden mallet lying on the floor nearby, slimed with blood and several broken blue feathers.

Dean's covered in blood, cuts, long and short gashes. Ballard and the other three have been busy, all right. Some halfwit carved the numbers 666 into the meat of the kid's right shoulder, a pentagram on his chest, and an inverted cross down on his left side, right over his hipbone. Creedie flinches as he realizes that big black purplish blue bruise on Dean's face is the heel print of a size twelve boot.

"We came out here so no one could hear us work. Got plenty of privacy out here. Nearest neighbor's miles away." Ballard shrugs. "Freak won't scream, I'll give 'em that."

She walks over and grabs a handful of that long sandy blond hair and viciously twists his head up and around. The kid stares at her dully. He's a beautiful, bloodied ruin just waiting for the final strokes that will put him down for good.

Kubrick stands there, and he's able to ignore that wide-eyed look on Creedie's face. He thinks about all that shit that happened months ago, and it all comes back to him with crystal clarity. Yep, it's a fucking epiphany, folks, and the lightbulb going off over his head is so blinding he's surprised no one else can see it.

_**Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,  
That saved a wretch like me...  
**_

Sam Winchester was a klutz. An idiot. He'd knocked himself out in that motel room months ago, and it was so damn easy tying him up, they really should've known better.

_**I once was lost but now am found,  
**_

"Things like this don't just happen," he'd told Creedie then. "God led us here for one reason…to do his work. This is destiny…"

"But, you see," Dean snarked that day, "there's something about me that you don't know…"

_No shit._

The things that kid had done that day, the way he stopped them…it was effortless, and it wasn't right. Wasn't _natural_. Sam wasn't the one. It was _Dean_. Had been all along.

_And even then, I got it wrong_, Kubrick thinks dazedly. _Gordon had it wrong._ _Ass-backwards wrong_.

_**Was blind, but now, I see.**_

Ballard nudges Kubrick in the arm and he's back in the barn again.

It won't talk. Won't, or can't. Either way it needs to be put down. Here," Ballard steps away, grins as she hands Kubrick the Taurus 9mm loaded with silver ammo. "You can do the honors."

"Okay," Kubrick says slowly. He stares down at the pistol. He's handled guns all his life, and the weight in his hand feels familiar and wrong at the same time.

Kubrick stands there for a long moment, still staring, before he raises the gun and pulls the trigger.

And what do you know, the neighbors are so far away they _don't_ hear the gunshots, and they _don't_ call the cops. Imagine that.

_**000**_

"Broke out just for you, Sammy boy," Gordon Walker drawls. "Just you and me, the way it should have been all along." He walks around the chair he's tied Sam up in, smirks a little as he sees Sam struggle against the ropes.

Sam can't talk because of the gag Gordon stuffed into his mouth, but the look on his face speaks volumes. _Fuck you_ doesn't even begin to cover it.

Gordon sees the look and shakes his head reproachfully. "Now, that's no way to be. I didn't kill Bobby when I took you, did I? I'm not a monster, Sam, no matter what you might think. Singer's old. He's confused. He's dead wrong about you, but he's loyal, I'll give him that."

Sam pulls at his wrists. The ropes don't give, won't give. Like everything else Gordon does, the knots are tied just right. Gordon goes over to his duffel, rummages around inside looking for the appropriate tool to start the festivities off with. "Too bad about Dean, huh? He really was a good big brother to you, better than _you _deserved, freak. I heard all about that deal he made, just to get you back. And he went to hell for you anyway."

He pulls out a slender silver knife and smiles tightly as he holds it up to the light. "I'm a fair man, Sam. You'll be reunited with Dean pretty soon, 'cause I'm gonna send _you_ straight to hell. _After_ you tell me what those demons are planning to do."

_Shit,_ Sam thinks to himself. _It's gonna be a long night, because I don't have a clue._

_**000000**_

The last two chapters of Dog Eat Dog will be posted by this weekend. Will update this bad boy then.


	2. My Blue Heaven

A/N: And now we're going to take a little trip through the mind of one Samuel Winchester. Don't let the door hit 'ya on the way in.

Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, darn it. _Wait, I don't?_

_**In The Eye of The Beholder: Unaware, Part 2**_

_**000**_

He's deliberately gone on hunts without doing the proper research. He's still too much of a hunter to just walk into the (pick one) cave/sewer/deserted factory/vacant house _totally_ unarmed, but the idea of suicide by fugly does have a certain appeal, after all. So if Sam deliberately forgets to load his weapons with silver ammo, forgets to take that flask of holy water in with him, and leaves the containment amulets in the back bench of the Impala, that shows _intent_, doesn't it?

_Suicides go straight to hell, right? _

_Right?_

And the hell of it was, even though he went in unprepared like that on all those hunts, somehow, someway, he survived just the same.

_Damn._

He never found Dean's body. That was the thing. He found Dean's bloody handprint on the basement floor. Dean's Colt 1911 nearby, a few feet away from the fugly's remains. That was _it_. That was _all_.

Sam couldn't fool himself. Sulfur in the air, streaks of the damned stuff halfway up the walls, on the floor. He couldn't fool himself into thinking that Dean would turn up later, maybe limping a little, with that easy, crooked smile of his and a smart ass remark on his lips. The fugly's claws were coated with slick wet blood, and Sam knew right away what had happened.

Dean died alone in that godforsaken place. He died, and that crossroads bitch had taken him.

Sam laughs as he shakes his head. The gag in his mouth muffles the laugh to a short huffing sound. He's disgusted with himself now, more than ever before. He's lost Dean. He couldn't save him. He's tried to get himself killed deliberately and he couldn't even do that one thing right.

And now _this_. Murdered souls go to heaven, the one place he _doesn't_ want to go.

Gordon misinterprets the laugh and the shake of Sam's head as defiance. Can't have that, oh no, so he breaks Sam's right thumb and ring finger. Sam tells himself not to scream out, but the pain is so bright, so all consuming he screams out anyway, full of rage and fear, pain and regret, and Gordon smiles a little at that.

_**000**_

Hours later Sam's riding sweeping thermals of pain that makes him lightheaded. He's just past the edge, on the border of this wonderful place he's heard so much about, a place where there's so much pain you can't feel anything anymore, and he can't wait to get there. He deliberately doesn't look down, doesn't _want_ to see what Gordon has done to his hands and arms. It's better not to look.

Sam nearly groans when Kubrick and Creedie walk into the room. He's still conscious when Kubrick draws his pistol on Gordon, but things get a little fuzzy around the edges then. Black spots crowd around the edges of Sam's vision, but he's kinda unconcerned by that time.

He hears gunshots.

Something hard punches into his left shoulder and right leg, and as he falls backwards into soft deep blackness Sam hears someone else groaning in pain but by that time he really doesn't give a damn.

_**000**_

Dying's not what Sam thought it would be. Don't believe the hype.

No blinding white light. No series of flashbacks. It's all a blur. He feels himself being carried somewhere. There's a whole lotta cursing, and at one point they nearly drop him. He hears the rumble of an engine being started, and away they go.

Not what he expected at all.

He's in That Place, feeling no pain at all. His limbs feel heavy as lead. His head's stuffed with cotton and it's all he can do but lie there. Breathing is just an illusion, he's sure of it. He ignores the beating of his heart, too.

"I'm sorry, okay?" Kubrick says brokenly. "I'm so damn sorry…" and if he says it again dead or not Sam's gonna get up and put his foot where the sun don't shine.

Kubrick's dead too? Ol' Gordie must've _really_ cleaned house.

Sam doesn't see Jess. Since he's headed upstairs he really expected to. He wants his Mom. He even wonders exactly where John got to after he climbed out of the Devil's Gate. Sam wouldn't mind seeing John again. Dad is _Dad_, after all. Yeah, that might be emo, but so be it. _Dead_, remember?

He feels hands touching him occasionally. He looks up through the haze and sees a hooded figure leaning over him. Maybe this is his Reaper, but somehow Sam doubts it. For one thing, the hood looks like a grey blanket, not a traditional black reaper's hood, but hey, what does he know, huh? After he was healed on Roy LaGrange's stage Dean said the old wrinkled reaper dude was wearing a suit and tie. Go figure.

Maybe he's being a petty little bitch, but Sam feels like he's being cheated, like The Powers That Be are cutting corners whenever they see him coming. He wants in on life's mysteries, but whoever this is doesn't say a word, just looms over him, sometimes touching Sam's shoulder, his leg, his hands or his heart.

The pain goes away then. Once when he was in the hospital recovering from a hunt gone south Sam had the good fortune to get dosed with morphine. Lot of floaty, dreamy moments there. Like _now_. Good drugs. Good stuff.

The face above him is shrouded by that grey blanket and shadows. Sam stares up dazedly for a long moment. He sees only half: smooth freckled skin, a strong jawline. A full delicate mouth and a surprisingly refined nose. One wide green eye framed by ridiculously long dark eyelashes.

Doesn't ring any bells. Sam yawns and sinks beneath the haze again.

God, he misses Dean.

_**000**_

Sam doesn't remember Bobby dying too.

Huh.

Sam's also surprised that they allow so much cussing up in heaven.

Bobby's in rare form. He starts out with "bastards" and progresses to "idjits." Kubrick yells out "Don't shoot", and they go on from there. Sam's too wiped out to pay much attention to either end of the conversation.

Sam feels himself being lifted and carried again, and yeah, Heaven looks and smells a lot like Bobby's place, from the junkyard dog posse out in the yard to the books stacked up all around inside the house. Bobby's house smells of dried herbs and chili and beer. At one point Sam hears Bobby take a deep breath and then there's silence so deep you could hear paint dry or grass grow.

"Oh my God," Bobby says quietly. Then: "Sam, what the hell did you do? Damn Winchesters, making deals with demons…"

Sam wants to tell him that he hasn't done _anything_, but it's too much trouble to talk.

Sam sleeps.

_**000**_

Sunlight slanting through the small window in Bobby's spare room settles right on Sam's face. Can't sleep all day in Heaven, so he figures it's his wake-up call.

He stretches his tall lanky frame and takes inventory. He's not in pain anywhere, and he's still got all his fingers and toes. He vaguely remembers some sort of unpleasantness about his hands and shoulder and one of his legs, but everything's in good working order, so he promptly forgets about it.

Sam opens his eyes, blinks in the sunlight, and swings his long legs out of bed. He sits there for a moment as he rakes his hands through his hair. He's wearing a white loose-fitting t shirt and dark grey sweatpants, and he wonders where his clothes have got to. Can't walk around Heaven all day in sweatpants, yeah?

He's still sun-dazzled, which is why at first he doesn't notice his so-called Reaper sitting in that wooden chair at the foot of the bed.

Sam stops and stares. He's hallucinating. That's it. Has to be.

"Uh, hello?"

The figure doesn't answer. _He/she/it_ just sits there, head down, face shrouded by shadows. Sam sees that the Reaper robes aren't robes at all, just a couple of wide grey blankets. The blankets are tented high around the back and shoulders. Sam doesn't know what he's seeing, not just yet, but he's curious. Curiosity is hard-wired into him. _Go and find out._ It's what he's good at.

Sam tries again. "Excuse me?"

Still no answer.

Sam eases closer, and the figure doesn't move, just sits in the chair with their knees up to their chest. Sam can see the tips of ten pink toes sticking out from underneath the blanket, and they seem normal enough. They seem familiar too, but right now he files that detail away for future use.

What he does next might seem rude, but hey, after all, he's already dead, _right_? So what are they going to do, slap him on the wrist and send him to his room for all eternity?

Sam reaches out one hand, and the figure makes a huffing noise. It's a short exhale of breath, kind of like _Now what?_

Sam hooks his fingers around the edge of the blanket, and he pulls the damn thing back.

Sam's eyes widen in disbelief.

He doesn't even blink.

Shoulder length sandy blond hair. Smooth freckled skin.

Dean blinks at him, all wide-eyed and slightly startled.

Sam's on auto-pilot. Once in motion he can't stop himself. He pulls the blanket down and back even further, and when he sees those massive feathered wings folded up against Dean's well-muscled back (_Light blue?_ Sam thinks to himself. _What the hell, dude, light blue?_) everything inside Sam just screeches to a halt.

_**000**_

Please review.

Next: Bela shows up with an offer Sam has to refuse.


	3. A Work of Art

Well, dang, I guess you guys like this fractured little fairy tale after all. Thanks:)

I apologize for the delay in posting and responding to your reviews. Spyware viruses are not our friends. (And sometimes RL isn't either.)

A/N: In this AU the boys have never met Bela before. Bobby has. Also, dialogue from "Houses of the Holy", "Croaton" "Devil's Trap" and "In My Time of Dying" from Jensen Ross Ackles Fans season 2 episode summaries, courtesy of Aurelia.

Also, there's no angst in this one. No. Really. There isn't. Why are you looking at me like that?

Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Wish I did.

_**In The Eye of the Beholder: Unaware, Part 3**_

_**000**_

"Dean?"

Sunlight slants through that small window up above. The light picks up dust motes floating in the air, highlights the soft cool blue color of Dean's wings as they frame his back and shoulders. Tears prickle the back of Sam's nose and he just doesn't give a fuck, not right now. He's weak and shaky in his center and all crumbly around the edges. He barely feels the floor underneath his knees as he kneels down next to the chair with a hard graceless thump.

God, Dean's eyes are so bright and deep and green in the light. He blinks as Sam touches the side of his face with shaky fingers. The skin around Dean's eyes crinkles a little as he smiles. He looks young, tired, and the smile's open and somehow vulnerable, a mere shadow of that usual blinding grin of his. It's the most beautiful damn sight Sam has ever seen.

"Hey, Sammy…" Dean whispers softly, hoarsely.

Sam pulls those long sandy blond locks away from the side of Dean's face and shakes his head. "You need a haircut, bro'." He tries for light, casual, but seeing Dean living, breathing, _being_ is too much. Sam can't hold it. "I tried to save you," he mutters brokenly. "I tried…"

"Don't." Dean shakes his head. "Just…dude, don't." Sam sees something like fear in Dean's eyes, slick and shadowy, and just that quick, it's gone. Dean's eyes flicker for a moment, stutter from blank to aware in the space of a heartbeat, but they stay _green. _Not red, not black, not even yellow, thank God. Bobby wouldn't have allowed Dean to stay inside the house if Dean hadn't checked out okay. Sam knows that.

His mind skitters back and forth, from one point to the next. He's never felt so _helplessfuckedupsadangry _in his entire life. Dean's back, but dammit, he shouldn't have had to go _anywhere_. Ruby lied when she claimed she could save him.

Ruby also disappeared after Dean died. Sam had the special Colt with him while he searched for her. He wanted to express his thanks for her help in a way Ruby would be sure to understand.

Dean's back. Somehow, some way he came back, apparently as the one thing he'd declared he had absolutely no faith or belief in. Poetic irony is a purebred bitch.

"_Okay. Alright. You know what? I get it. You've got faith. That's…hey, good for you. I'm sure it makes things easier. I'll tell you who else had faith like that: Mom. She used to tell me when she tucked me in that angels were watching over us. In fact, that was the last thing she ever said to me."  
_

"_You never told me that."_

_"What's to tell? She was wrong. There was nothing protecting her. There's no higher power. There's no God. I mean, there's just chaos and violence and random unpredictable evil that comes out of nowhere and rips you to shreds."_

Sam stares hard at Dean's fingers, as though he's trying to memorize every detail. Dean looks a little uncertain, but he doesn't pull away. Instead he puts his feet on the floor and just sits there and Sam has his arms around him before he even realizes it.

It's meant to be a quick hug, just between brothers, gruff and quick and manly above all, not meant to last too long but the emotion's there (_OhGodIthoughtIlostyouforever _and_ M'hereSammyright here) _overwhelming everything else.

Sam expects to hear Dean mutter, "Personal space, Samantha, personal space", but he doesn't. Dean leans into Sam's touch as his right hand comes up slowly and pats Sam on the back. Sam gets choked up _and_ pissed off at the same time.

Dean's protective amulet is _gone._

His silver washer ring. _Gone._

A slight sound from behind and Bobby steps away from the doorway. No telling how long he's been standing there, and Sam doesn't care how it looks. He holds on tight.

And he wonders what else they took from Dean.

_**000**_

"…found something that you would have been interested in, you high-toned bitch. Think I'm gonna offer it to _you_? Better think again," Ballard laughs shortly, a low, mean sound from beyond the grave. Phone calls from the dead, and isn't modern technology grand? "Here's a picture. Let you see _exactly_ what you're missing. That's the closest you're ever gonna get to _this_."

_Wrong again as usual, dear_, Bela thinks dryly. The inflection she gives the word _dear _sounds a lot like _bitch_.

Bela looks at the picture one more time and she smiles a little as she snaps the cell phone shut. She's thirty miles away from Bobby Singer's yard, in a comfortable little farmhouse she's used as a safe house on occasion. It's far enough away to give her a decent headstart, a short enough distance that Dean won't have to exert himself too much, if it comes to that. She's not really all that considerate, but she hates having to deliver damaged goods.

She runs through the set-up on the table one more time. The midnight blue conjuration bowl sits in the middle. It's filled with water from an unmarked grave, gathered at midnight underneath a full moon. Two long blue bloody feathers lie on the altar cloth next to the bowl, and next to that is her black leather bound spell book, bookmarked to the page she'll need should Plan A fail. If nothing else, Bela is flexible. She has to be in her line of work. From the ancient arts to new technology and back again, if necessary.

She smiles as she flips her cell open and dials Sam Winchester's number.

_**000**_

He dreams with his eyes wide open sometimes.

It's ear-piercing shrieks and razor-edged terror. A carpet of torn and gutted bodies lying on the ground all around him, as far as the eye can see. Crack of bone, bright and quick, blood in the air, a fine dark mist.

…_**if I were gonna massacre a town, that's what I'd do… **_

Dean doesn't want _that_, even though they tell him that he _does_.

Long ago he was his father's son. He remembers the way the skin around his father's yellow eyes crinkled with pleasure whenever he looked at him. He watched his father interact with normal humans as he taught them magicks, things Heaven didn't want them to know. He was too young to realize he was seeing the start of the war, and he was still a youngling when that fond look changed, curdled to hate and distrust.

_**You betrayed me, boy. Sided with heaven against your own flesh and blood.**_

He hadn't, of course, but his protests fell on deaf ears. Azazel had always been a little too _prickly_ when it came to loyalty.

A lifetime later Dean remembers another father, big and dark and burly. His hazel eyes crinkled the same way ---

_**I'm so damn proud of you.**_

--- but Dean was wary this time. A distant memory lingered right on the edge of his consciousness. He knew he was loved, but there were conditions, just like last time. He couldn't trust it. Couldn't trust _any_ of it.

One night the two fathers became one, and the second father's eyes blazed murky yellow. Things had changed between them, and that wasn't good. It wasn't good _at all_.

_**Dad, please…don't you let it kill me…please, Dad…**_

He closes his eyes against that memory and turns his face up to the sun. He sits on one of the rusted hunks out back, just high enough to have a good view of the yard. The sun-warmed metal feels good against through the seat of his jeans. Sunlight against his bare chest and feet warms his skin, and there's no sulfur smell in the air. He's thankful for _that_, at least.

He stretches one wing out to the tip as he rolls his neck and shoulders. First one wing, then the other. His wing span measures eleven feet when he expands them like that. _Size does matter, baby._ He can't remember where he heard that from, but it's probably true.

Having wings should feel strange and weird. It doesn't.

He should be bothered by not being bothered by it. He isn't.

There was a time when he wasn't that thrilled with heights, much less flying. He can't remember why anymore. There are gaps in him, big gaping burn holes. He can feel the tattered singed edges, almost taste ashes on his tongue, in the back of his throat.

Five minutes ago Bobby pulled Sam aside as Dean walked out the back kitchen door. They're having a conversation now. _The Conversation._ About _him_. Comparing notes, probably.

Dean wants to stretch his wings out then, aches to just leap into the air from a standing start. He wants to soar into that wide blue sky like an arrow shot from a crossbow, but he can't. Gravity has a solid grip around his ankles, and he's too damned heavy to lift himself up.

He can sense the wards Bobby has placed all around. Wards to protect, to contain. Wards to distort sight, make anyone on the outside see nothing at all.

Wards to contain _him._

_Man knows his stuff, _Dean thinks dully. He's too tired to care right now, and it's just as well he's earthbound now.

Dean can't think of anywhere else he wants to go anyway.

When he first saw Bobby he couldn't remember the man's name to save his life.

Dean knew Bobby was dangerous. He could tell by the way Bobby held himself, busted arm and all. Bobby's hunter's instinct was like sonar pinging off a solid object. Dean was being measured; his threat level was being assessed, and Dean realized that unless he wanted to get into an all out brawl with the older man, he'd have to be cautious. He'd have to hide. Wait it out, until he could get the upper hand. He doesn't like thinking that way, but it came to him just the same.

He sees that look on Sam's face, and he'd give anything not to see that. Hope, confusion, relief, frustration. Better not to say too much, not let Sam know how much he's changed. What he's _not_ anymore.

Winchesters don't do _happy_. It's a natural law, a fact of life, and this particular episode of that little family drama isn't gonna end well. Dean can feel it in his gut, a prickly sensation like something barbed and spiny is moving around inside him. It's going to end bloody. He's sure of that much.

He hears the skritch of claws against metal as something moves just below him. One of the junkyard dogs, maybe. Rumsfield 2 is always trying to entice Dean to come down when he goes up high like that. Dean smiles a little. It's time for a good old fashioned belly rub. Do them both some good.

Green eyes meet pitch black, and Dean's smile disappears as his wings actually sag.

Dean sighs heavily, and Dark smirks. "Thought you got rid of me, didn't you, boy?"

He's a mirror image of Dean, as he climbs into view, but not quite. His skin is tanned, freckled, darkened by soot and blood. Not _his_ blood, though. _He _never bleeds; someone else always does. He's bare-chested and barefoot. The jeans he wears are worn, ragged at the knees, and they're bloodstained just like his skin. His wings are long, battered brown leather, blackened around the edges. Dark blond hair, short and spiky, and those full lips are set in a perpetual smirk. He's the one voice, the one face Dean can't ignore.

Dean sees his reflection in those pitch black eyes, and he always looks too young, too pale. The smirk on the other one's face gets even wider.

"What the fuck do you want?" Dean growls. He sounds tougher than he feels.

"It's not gonna work. You know that, don't ya?" Dark sits down next to Dean, practically in his lap. Dean scowls and moves over. He doesn't like the feel of that skin against his, slick with hot damp heat. He always tries to touch, and Dean always moves out of reach. Sometimes Dean thinks if he doesn't move they'll start to merge, probably melt into each other. The thought of this bastard sliding inside, filling those empty spaces, makes Dean uneasy.

Dark tilts his head sideways and smiles. "Hiding what you are, what you've lost. Won't be long before Sammy finds out. He's a bright kid. Instead faking it, you shoulda gone mute like you did when Mom died. All those months, you didn't say a word."

"I'm not fakin' anything. I'm not."

"Sure you are. Let's pretend to be Dean Winchester. You used to be good at it. Not anymore. Past life, kid. Old news." Dark likes grand gestures, and he makes one now, sweeps his arm out over the yard, towards the fences. "Can't you feel them? Out in the real world there? Black smoke jumping from one meatsuit to another? Can you come out to play? _Don't you want to?_ It's all for you, boy." His voice is deep, whiskey smooth. "Always has been. You were _chosen._" He reaches out, strokes the side of Dean's face lightly. _"_You _have_ to lead them."

Dean snarls as he throws his arm up to block. "Get the hell away from me."

Dark laughs. "You're so gosh darn cute when you try to act all tough and macho, you know that?" He fingers the charm at the end of the leather cord around his neck. Dean pointedly looks the other way. He knows what it is. A part of him wants to reach out, wants to run his fingers down that slick black surface.

It's a mask. A blank black mask, about two inches long. Blacker than black. Golden slits for the eyes and mouth.

"Not so strange, is it?" Dark smiles. "You're making this harder than it needs to be."

_I'm…I'm not listening to this…_

"You've worn masks all your life. You had all those masks you used to put on around the others. Devoted son. Loving brother. Protector. Hunter. All that, and none of 'em were really _yours_. Someone else chose them for you."

_Leave me alone. Damn you, leave me alone..._

Dean fidgets as his heart revs up, thuds against his chest like it wants _out_.

"_You _can choose this one. Something for yourself, and there's nothing wrong with that, is there?"

He can't leave, and he can't stay. He can call out for Sam, but that's not the way this is supposed to go. _He's _the big brother._ He's_ supposed to protect Sam, take care of him,_ not_ the other way around. Dean's right on the edge. All it takes is one good push, and they both know it.

The dark one smiles as he offers the charm to Dean. "Come on, kid. Make your daddies proud."

_**000**_

Forget the beer. Bobby's right arm is in a sling, but he still pours the whiskey out without spilling a drop.

Sam drains the whiskey from the glass in one long swallow. He sets the glass back down on the kitchen counter top, hard. "Has he…" Sam's throat feels dry to the point of being painful. He swallows, and something clicks inside. "Have you ever seen him…fly?"

"Haven't seen him do it," Bobby says, a little too quickly. "He can't, Sam. Not here. Not now. Dean's grounded, and he knows it. I've got wards all over the place. He hasn't tried to fight them. Didn't make a move on me."

Bobby shrugs, then flinches a little as his shoulder twinges on him. _Damn you, Gordon Walker._ "He's good with the dogs. They like him. They accept him."

"You tested Dean," Sam croaks. "What else did you do?"

Bobby shrugs. "Usual stuff. Handed him a bottle of beer."

"Spiked with holy water?"

"He didn't know what to do with it at first." Bobby nods. "Kinda flinched because the bottle was wet and cold, but he didn't drop it. He watched my hands, Sam. He watched how I held my bottle, and he copied that. Watched me drink, then he did too. Walked underneath and through a devil's trap. Didn't even look up. Had him hold various amulets in his hands. Amulets that reveal, others that react badly to demons. Nothing happened. He hung around _you_, Sam. Wouldn't leave, no matter what. Now, kid," Bobby says wearily, "you gonna tell me what the hell is goin' on?'

Sam shrugs. "Bobby, I don't have a clue."

"Those two idjits who dropped you boys off claimed they rescued Dean from some other hunters. Said they swung by Gordon Walker's place because Dean knew _you_ were there. Gordon tried to kill you, then he shot Kubrick. They stopped Walker before it went too far. Kubrick said Dean healed the both of you."

Bobby pauses for a moment, and the look on Sam's face damn near breaks his heart, but it has to be said. They can't tiptoe 'round the damn thing any longer. "Sam, Dean's not the same as he was. He might not ever be."

"He's my brother, Bobby. Whatever's changed inside him now, I can't…" Sam's shoulders slump."I bailed on him before. I'm not gonna do that again." He frowns as his cell goes off.

He doesn't bother to check the caller ID. It's probably Ellen, with some news. They'd all heard the rumors. Some kind of dust-up down in Hell. Civil war. Anarchy. Some of the demons other hunters had exorcised screamed out the details, offered eternal life, power, influence, _anything_, _everything_ in exchange for their freedom.

Dean had either been cast out or had escaped as soon as a hole leading topside opened up. In Dean's case escape sounded a helluva lot more likely.

"Hello?"

"Is this Sam Winchester?"

Sam frowns. "Who wants to know?"

"Sam, my name is Ms. Lugosi. I'm calling about your brother."

"My…my brother?"

"Yes, your older brother Dean. I have it on good authority that he's back and in need of, shall we say, special care."

"You've got the wrong number, lady."

"Please, Sam, don't insult my intelligence. I'm in possession of a photo of your brother as he appears now. He has shoulder length blond hair and green eyes. Did I mention the light blue feathers? He's magnificent. A work of art."

"Don't even know what the _hell _you're talking about."

"Now, Sam," she says in a mock soothing tone. "My client has Dean's best interests at heart. He's offering your brother a chance for a long, normal life. Think of this as an adoption. You'd be well-compensated. You'd have enough to live on for the rest of your life. You could go back to school, make a new life for yourself. A very comfortable life, I might add. I can't imagine you'd want to be…_burdened_ with Dean's care for the rest of your natural life. Under my client's protection Dean would live out his life in peace and safety. I imagine he won't have much of either when other hunters see him in his present condition."

"You bitch, you're asking me to sell my brother — "

"Sam?" Bobby scowls. "Who the hell is _that_?"

"He's been hurt once by them, Sam," Bela says serenely. "How many more times do you want to put him through_ that_, just for the illusion of freedom? Are you really that selfish, Sam?"

"Fuck you, and fuck your client too." Sam breaks the connection. The fierce look on his face makes Bobby extremely uneasy.

"Sam? Who was _that_?"

"Lugosi…she's asking about Dean…"

"_She?_ _Lugosi?_ Ah, crap. Bela." Bobby grabs the shotgun and heads for the door. "Come on. We gotta get Dean inside. _Now_, Sam."

_**000**_

The two blue feathers hardly make a ripple as Bela drops them into the water in the conjuration bowl. She smiles as she whispers the words…

…_iváhsi proximat yüduin! Enimor ugonèr porteit taym!_

_Aerix yealdeth ephides saydum vocus wyanas raeli…_

Bela sprinkles a pinch of yallow and mugwort in over the feathers, and the cold water comes to a sudden roiling boil. Steam rises out of the bowl, and Bela leans forward just far enough to inhale some of the steam.

She picks up the string of containment amulets from the table and goes to the stone circle out back to claim her prize.

_**000 **_

_**TBC**_


	4. Come Undone

A/N – This fic insisted on being worked on first. Since I'm snowed in today, I figured I'd post this first so I can finish up Dog. Pushy little plot wolf. Coyote and Dean are not pleased…

mightymic mentioned that demons like to use Dean as a sex toy. Well, who wouldn't? And Nyx Wings, since you really, _really_ like Dark Dean, your boy has an extended role in this chapter. You had questions about that mask charm that Dark keeps trying to persuade Dean to wear? Be careful what you ask for…

_**In The Eye of the Beholder, Part 4**_

…**iváhsi proximat yüduin! **

**..comeherecomeherecomeherecomeherecomehere….**

"Stop it," Dean growls out loud. A dark speck in the air, a worrisome gnat buzzes and whispers around his head, faint and irritating. He swats at it, and the sound slips through his fingers and invades him as it dives deep into his left ear. Dean's eyes glaze over. It's an ice pick to the brain, a sudden explosion of sound that sizzles down his nerve endings and into his muscles. His entire body immediately jerks upward.

_**Enimor ugonèr porteit taym!**_

_**...comeherecomeherecomeherecomeherecomehere….**_

Dean's on his feet before he even knows it. His shoulder muscles twitch as his wings unfurl. They beat once, scoop up air effortlessly and Dean's feet clear the rusted metal by six inches before the grounding wards flare and slam him right back down. His ankles buckle with the impact. Brittle glass. Dean lands awkwardly as he pitches forward on his hands and the balls of his feet.

He doesn't want to get back up. He can't stop himself. He wants to lie down in the noonday sun, wants to curl up on the sun-warmed metal and sleep, but he can't. He pushes against the roof with his hands and gets back up on his feet. His wings continue to beat the air in powerful, sure strokes.

And he can't make them stop.

…_**Aerix yealdeth ephides…**_

_**...comeherecomeherecomeherecomeherecomehere…**_

He's being pulled in every possible direction, up, down, sideways but he can't get enough lift and _ah, God, it hurts._ His feet remain planted firmly against the rusted metal of the truck cab. The pull on his shoulder blades is murderous, makes his vision blur and his eyes water.

"Why are you doing this?" Dean mutters dazedly. A hot slick hand wraps around his left bicep, moist warm breath scorches the shell of his right ear. "I'm not doing _anything_," Dark hisses, his black eyes shining with excitement. "We're being summoned, don't you get it?"

…_**SAYDUM VOCUS WYANAS RAELI…**_

_**COMEHERECOMEHERECOMEHERECOMEHERE**_

One of Dean's ribs breaks with a bright snapping sound like a twig. His left ankle follows, and pain sweeps over him as bones break and tendons pull nearly in two.

He barely feels it when his left shoulder dislocates.

The yard rises up all around him, closes in on him on all sides and he can't breathe and he just wants to fly and _is that so wrong, is that so fucking wrong? _There's another snap as a rib on his right side caves in. His head rocks back, the graceful curve of his neck strains in one long trembling line as he stares upward into that wide blue sky, and he curses Bobby Singer —

_--- haven't done anything wrong, dammit, I didn't ask for any of this -- _

Behind him, Dark shudders, but he's smiling.

"Think you need a little hand, Ace," he whispers in Dean's ear, low and rough, in a pretty good imitation of John Winchester's growl-voice, and Dean startles as Dark pries open the fingers of his left hand and pushes the charm against Dean's skin. Another spasm ripples through Dean's body as his muscles clench up. His hand snaps closed and his eyes widen as the vision rises all around him.

_**Devils Gate, Wyoming**_

_**Months ago**_

_Poor old yellow eye, the wraith thinks. _

_The Demon's host body lies on the ground, right next to some tombstones, eyes normal brown once more, sightlessly staring up at the night sky. _

_She floats over and around his body, a reverse negative image. She gave up legs long ago; they've been useless to her for so long she doesn't miss them at all. The hunters are gone for the moment. She doesn't have long, and she can't take much. A piece of bone, a handful of flesh. _

_She has to be careful what she takes, make sure they can't see that the meat has been interfered with. This was Azazel's prize meatsuit after all. They'll salt and burn his carcass, of course. Can't really blame them for that. _

_She pushes her fingers in past his slack lips, past the cooling meat of his tongue. She scowls as Samuel Colt's magic burns her fingers. Years of being Azazel's pet has left traces deep inside that even the Colt can't burn away, not completely. Her fingers hook into claws when she feels the bone of the back of his skull. She takes a piece, about two inches in diameter. _

_She's gone by the time the hunters come back, with cans of gasoline and bags of salt._

_Later on she and her witch sisters nestle cozily inside the bodies of one Estelle and Benjamin Lester and their two children, Christine and Clifton. None of the Lesters have been themselves lately, and it shows. _

_One sister polishes the bone fragment until it shines like glass. The other carves the runes into the bone. The artistic one carves the facial features, the slits for the eyes and mouth. They stand around in a circle under the full moon chanting. Their hands drip with blood but the bone greedily sucks up every last drop. _

_The proper sacrifices have been made. There's no one else at the rest stop. _

_Well, no one left alive, that is._

_The chant rises and falls, and there's a sharp snap of black energy between their clasped fingers. The oldest wraith witch holds the charm up to the moonlight and smiles with Benjamin Lester's mouth. _

_It's perfect. _

_A perfect gift for that ungrateful green-eyed child. _

Back in the yard again, sunlight overhead, and Dark wraps his arms around Dean from behind, and oh God, it's like an electric current when their skin touches. Dean arches his back, tries to wriggle away from that touch, and darkness sinks into him, stains his skin like ink.

"You're mine now, baby. All mine," Dark purrs aloud, nipping and licking at Dean's ear.

Why should he worry about _that _anyway, it's Bobby's damn fault, _all of this_, and Dean sees his hands wrapped around Bobby's throat, and he laughs out loud at the sight. The older hunter is defiant at first, then the fear blossoms in his eyes and _it's a wonderful thing, a good thing_. Bobby's neck breaks like dry kindling underneath Dean's strong fingers and with an extra twist he turns Bobby's head completely all the way around, facing the back.

It's like old times. And the best is yet to come.

Sammy.

_**000**_

He hears the beat of the wings before he actually sees Dean. It's a heavy, powerful sound that hammers at the air. Sam's eardrums contract and expand with each beat, and as he turns the corner and looks up at his brother he stops dead in his tracks.

"Dean!"

Dean stands there on top of this rusted out truck. He's bloodied and bruised, every muscle of his body straining upwards. His wings are fully extended above and behind him, and Sam knows that if it weren't for the grounding wards Bobby placed all around Dean would already be miles away by now.

There's a shadow pressed into Dean from behind, and for a moment Sam thinks of Peter Pan --

…_Dean's lost his shadow and he's trying to put it back on…_

-- but that's crazy talk, this is more like Dean's mirror image in black smoke, right down to the long smoky wings stretching out and behind. Sam can't make out the features clearly but he could swear the damn thing grins when it lays eyes on him.

Dean sees something he wants more than flight. He crouches, and his wings slow a little, still churning the air, still straining. Sam sees the fingers of Dean's right hand curl reflectively into a claw, sees his brother's head tilt sideways slightly, with preternatural smoothness. Dean's eyes narrow, and something ancient and predatory sparks in those wide green eyes.

"Dean?"

_Sammy_, Dean breathes eagerly, but the sound bounces around inside Sam's skull instead.

Dean's lips aren't moving.

_**000**_

He drowns in darkness.

The holes inside him are being filled. His ears ring with low malicious laughter at his weak attempts to fight it off.

Dean stares at Sam, and baby brother stares right back at him, all love and concern and fear _for_ him, not _of_ him.

Dean backs up, scowling. _Stop lookin' at me like that._

_Stop looking at me like that, damn you…_

'_M a freak…_

He doesn't want Sam to see, doesn't want him to see him like _this_…

_And everyone who loves me, leaves me…_

"Sam," Dean says aloud, and that one word's a broken, desperate sound.

_Don't look…don't leave me…please, Sam..._

The shadow hooks one arm down in front of Dean's neck, hooks its fingers into Dean's throat and jerks him backwards as its mouth curls into a snarl, but Sam's eyes are locked on Dean's, they never break eye contact.

_I'm here, 'bro. I'm here. I'm not goin' anywhere. _

Sam doesn't move, not even when Bobby Singer pushes past him with a dull brass medallion in his hand.

Bobby raises his hand, points the disk at Dean and the sunlight catches the metal, reflects brilliant golden light that cascades over Dean's body. Sam doesn't even recognize the words (_not Latin,_ he knows that much, _not Latin)_ as the old man's voice thunders into the bright still air like an Old Testament prophet.

The light hits the shadow and the damn thing is screaming, mouth stretched impossibly wide, a high reedy sound ("Bastard. Good," Sam growls to himself). It fades into bright thin air and Sam's up and scrambling to get to his brother as Dean's wings sag and he collapses face down, a puppet with his strings cut.

_**000**_

_I hate surprises. _Bela stares at the being crouched in the stone circle. _It's always bad for business._

She sighs as she takes in the details. No blue feathers. Leather wings. Darker skin, and the hair's shorter. Either Winchester traded down or he evolved.

_Either way,_ Bela thinks to herself, _this might be a problem._ Her client was _very_ specific, had practically drooled when she showed him the picture on her cell phone. She didn't miss that flash of insatiable hunger in the man's pale grey eyes.

She didn't allow herself to think about what Dean Winchester's life would be like once she acquired and delivered him. Quite frankly, she didn't care. Bela cared about the money. The smooth transaction of business, and really, when you get right down to it, that's all this is, really.

It wouldn't do to think about what uses the merchandise she dealt in would be put to, especially when the goods were alive and breathing.

The dark one shakes himself and slowly rises to a standing position. He's deep chested, slim-hipped...and bow-legged. Bela smiles slightly as she notices that. His leathery wings unfurl slightly. Not a bad look, if you're into that sort of thing.

"Damn," he growls out loud, "I thought I had him." His upper lip curls into a sneer as he takes in the stone circle around him.

"Now that I have _you_, what am I going to do with you?"

It's a rhetorical question, of course. She really doesn't expect an answer, and he doesn't give her one, either.

He looks at her hungrily from head to toe, green eyes darkening to black then back to green again. His eyes flicker with recognition as he spots the containment amulets in her right hand. He cocks his head to one side and purses his lips.

"An educated woman. I like that," he says huskily.

"Then you know what these are," Bela says smoothly. "Are you going to behave yourself?"

He grins, bright and malicious. "Hell, no."

She shakes her head, smiles tightly. "Didn't think so."

She steps into the circle and his eyes widen in surprise. _Crazy bitch. Oh well._

She runs her thumb slowly, lazily, over the outer ridge of his wing. He shudders under her touch, then smirks. "Oh, baby. Nice hands."

They press against each other and it's all hungry mouths and friction and heavy breathing that echoes in their ears like thunder. He runs his hands down her back and she arches into him, moaning.

It's a race to see who can overpower the other. She recites the binding ritual, and he snatches the words from her lips with his mouth and tongue. He catches her right arm by her wrist and roughly twists it behind her back as she tries to loop the amulets around his neck. They nip and bite and suck at each other's mouths, and at one point she stops resisting, allows him full access.

The taste of her mouth and skin nags at him. He knows_ this_. He knows…

Bindweed. Damn herb. It controls, it influences others.

His eyes widen, but it's too late. He tries to push her away from him, but she pushes into_ him_ instead, and he can tell by the curve of her mouth against his skin that the bitch is smiling as she does it.

His eyes dull, and his movements slow. His hands drop limply to his sides, and he stands there, blinking dazedly.

She looks up at him and smiles sweetly as she presses the containment amulet in her left palm firmly against his chest, directly over his heart.

_Son of a bitch_, Dark thinks to himself, and everything goes pitch black.

_**000**_

Thought I'd end this right here. Next update will probably be this weekend. Sorry. Coyote/Dean needs to be wrapped up.

I may be a bitch for reviews, but at least I'm woman enough to admit it. (Thank you, Spike.)

Ya'll know what you have to do.


	5. Lost and Found

A/N: Something about this story was bothering me, and today I finally figured out what it was. Dean should find out what his name was back in the day when he was Azazel's son, so I did some research online. I thought of Aariel (Ariel), but the first thing I thought of was "The Little Mermaid", so I dropped that idea _real_ quick. I also thought it would be unseemly for Ol' Yeller (thank you, Carole) to refer to his wayward son as "Hey You." I found an actual name that fits our boy, but it may not be entirely historically accurate, so please, be kind. I just realized something about the spelling and the pronunciation, too. As painter Bob Ross would say, it's a "happy little accident."

Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Darn.

_**In The Eye of The Beholder Unaware, Part 5**__** - Lost and Found**_

**_000_**

"God Almighty," Bobby murmurs softly.

Sam's grunts as he gently lifts Dean up. Broken bones shift and splinter underneath Dean's bruised and battered skin. Sam tries not to cringe, but he can't help himself. He's pretty sure that God doesn't have a damned thing to do with _this_.

It takes the two of them to lift Dean up and carry him back into the house. His left arm hangs loose and useless at an awkward angle. Sam knows a dislocated shoulder when he sees one; it brings back memories of that summer up in Maine when Dean was hurled sideways into a wooden pier by an irate water spirit. Dean's busted up, broken inside, all smashed and loose and limp. Sam's afraid to touch him; he's afraid _not_ to touch him. Bobby obviously feels the same way, but they can't leave Dean out in the yard like that.

Dean always was solidly built, broad shouldered and well-muscled, and Sam had to carry him sometimes when he was ill or knocked unconscious. After Sam had that growth spurt back in his late teens carrying Dean was no problem, which promptly earned Sam the nickname "Sasquatch", but this time Sam's height and weight aren't much of an advantage. Dean's wings make carrying him awkward. They're limp, dead weight. No tension or spring at all to the muscles. The wing tips drag on the ground, in the dirt, and if there was ever an image of an angel fallen to earth, this certainly qualifies.

It's the first time Sam could touch Dean's wings without feeling _awkward_. He could have just asked Dean's permission, but how the hell do you ask a person _that_?

"Hey, bro, I know you just flew or clawed your way up from hell. You know I'm glad to see you and by the way, can I feel up your wings?"

Sam felt that just wouldn't cut it.

The only reference Sam has would be that John Travolta movie _Michael_, and that doesn't even come close. Travolta's wings always looked like they were about to fall off any second. Dean's wings are firmly attached to his shoulder blades by curved, smooth blades of light, hollow bone layered underneath planes of solid muscle.

Each feather is gloriously perfect, one layer carefully staggered on top of another layer. From a distance the color's an icy light blue, but close up Sam sees subtle shadings of robin's egg blue painted along the spines and the edges of the feathers. Slightly darker spots of blue dot the wings _here_ and _there_, and it suddenly occurs to Sam that Dean's wings are speckled, just like his skin is freckled.

Sam notices those details, concentrates on _that_, instead of how broken Dean's body feels as he and Bobby carry him in.

They manage somehow. Step by tortuous step. Sam thanks whatever gods there are that Dean's unconscious. He can't imagine the agony Dean would feel if he were awake.

_**000**_

He kneels in the dark water pit, and he can't understand any of it. His head hurts, a throbbing jumble of broken bones, _come here_, and dark laughter. His body hurts. His wings and shoulders ache. He used to be good at naming things, and it's all he can do to hold on to his name. It's_ Dean_. He knows that because it's what they call him when they look at him. It's _what_ he is,_ who_ he is, right?

Something's been added to him, and more than that has been taken away. He can feel it, but he doesn't know what do to about it.

He knows he used to be better than_ this_, wasn't always kneeling somewhere somewhen, waiting. He can't remember _what_ or _who_ he's waiting for, but his skin remembers the crosshatching of a pistol grip in his palm, he remembers the smell of gunpowder, sharp and heavy in the air.

He wasn't alone. He remembers that much. He was with _Dad _and _Sam_ and sometimes _Bobby_. Sometimes it was g_ood job, son_ and _I'm so proud of you, _or_ bitch_ and_ jerk_ and _Sammy_. They'd salt and burn the bones, they'd draw things on walls or floors that would stop the badness from coming in.

Sometimes he sees pale blonde hair and flames.

He catches his reflection in the pitch black water pooled around him, and he quickly looks away. Something's not quite right, and he doesn't want to look _too_ closely. It's all right not to look. Everything will be alright if he just. Doesn't. Look.

"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes."

Dean lets out the breath in his body in one long hitching exhale. He knows that voice. Heard it years ago, when he was little, in his crib. Heard it later on, just before Mommy died. It's the boogeyman, and even though he's big now it scares him just like it did when he was little.

Someone kneels next to him, and Dean won't look at first. He trembles as fingers brush slowly against the upper edge of his wings. It's a soft touch but it makes him shiver, and the man laughs, a cheerfully malicious sound.

_I'm not scared. 'm not. _

"Sure you are, kiddo. Got every right to be."

Dean raises his head and looks the bastard in the eyes.

"You're _dead_," Dean breathes. "_I killed you._"

"Killed me dead," Azazel agrees cheerily. His host body has the same large hole blown in his chest right above his heart. The eyes are bright and murky yellow all at the same time. "I'm not one to hold a grudge, though." He leans forward, stares intently at Dean's face. "My boy. My beautiful, beautiful boy."

"Don't touch me," Dean croaks. Azazel doesn't listen and he doesn't stop.

"Get your damn hands off me…."

"Your mother," the Demon says thoughtfully, his thumb skimming lightly over Dean's cheekbone. "She named you. Adin." He skims his fingers lightly alongside Dean's face.

"That's not my name --"

"It means handsome. Adored."

"My name is Dean…Michael…Winchester." Dean roughens his voice, puts everything he has into making himself sound confident, defiant. "John Winchester's my dad, and you killed my mother you son of a bitch…."

"Yeah, yeah yeah I know." Azazel sneers, does a dismissive gesture, a handflap. "Mary and John Winchester, _yadda yadda yadda_. Older brother to Samuel. And how _is_ Sam these days, Dean?" Azazel chuckles. "Wait'll Sammy sees this."

"Fuck you."

"That other life you had is slipping through those fingers of yours. You really wanna know_ why_ you can pretend to be Dean so well when you're around Sam? Because you can read him, _Adin_. You can read his mind, you can see all the things you did when you were a part of that damn family."

Azazel gets nose to nose with Dean then, right up in his face. "Can you remember your birthdate? Can you? Do you remember John Winchester's middle name? What branch of the service was hein? What war? What about that big black car he gave you? What's the make of the car, _Dean_?"

Dean looks stricken. This isn't right. There are holes inside him…stuff that was taken away, then filled up again. Filled up _wrong_. He can't think straight. He can't…

"You don't _know_, do you? You can't remember. You can't remember because Sam's not here."

Azazel reaches down into the dark water. Dean jerks back, but the Demon catches him by his right wrist and squeezes hard as he pulls Dean's hand up and out of the water and twists it around palm up.

"Do you see this? Do you?" The fingers of Dean's right hand are curved like claws, but there's something dark in the center of his palm, laid in right over his lifeline. It's a shadow with golden yellow eyes.

Dean makes the mistake of looking down and he can't tear his eyes away from it.

_He sees Azazel's host body on the ground in the Devil's Gate graveyard. The wraith witch takes what she needs, and she's long gone before he and Sam and Bobby and Ellen return with the salt and the gasoline._

_Dean sees what's left of the Lester family, only their bodies left now, minds destroyed, long gone, polishing and carving the skull bone under the pale full moon. _

_The chant rises and falls, and there's a sharp snap of black energy between their clasped fingers. The oldest wraith witch holds the charm up to the moonlight and smiles with Benjamin Lester's mouth. _

_It's perfect. _

_A perfect gift for that ungrateful green-eyed child. _

Fast forward to Bobby''s place…

_**Comeherecomeherecomeherecomeherecomerherecomehere**_

"Think you need a little hand, Ace," Dark whispers in Dean's ear, low and rough, in a pretty good imitation of John Winchester's growl-voice, and Dean startles as Dark pries open the fingers of his left hand and pushes the charm against Dean's skin.

"There's more of me inside you now than you_ ever_ dreamed possible."

Dean jerks his hand away, and Azazel smiles broadly as he stands up and steps back.

"Remember when dear sweet Mary told you that angels were watching over you when she tucked you in at night? Remember that, _Dean_? Well, she was partly right. It was me and mine. _Fallen_ angels. Funny, Mary didn't_ mention _that part, did she?"

"You…you got me. Leave Sam out of this…"

"Sorry, sport. No can do." Azazel walks around the dark water pool, and all Dean can do is kneel there and stare up at him. "You're Nephilim. Right down to the core. My people figured you just needed a little reminder from dear ol' Dad, that's all. But think about this, _Adin_. If _you're_ Nephilim, then that means that Sammy is too. He just doesn't know it yet."

Dean shakes his head wearily. "Lying bastard. Demons…lie. You all lie…"

The Demon is amused. He walks over, leans down and murmurs softly, "Sient dicentes leonem tuae?"

_What was your mother's name?_

Dean shudders as something inside him breaks loose, falls neatly into place. "Tuae Amaris," Dean hears himself whisper softly.

_Her name was Amaris._

A part of him wants to scream out, _no, that's, that's not right..._but he can't make himself heard.

And he can't remember the answer he wanted to say.

"Good boy," Azazel murmurs. "Good." He puts his lips right next to Dean's ear. "Uytria

caro exire homine?"

_How did she die?_

"Mortuos. Qui te sanguis. Prasente impera effuge…"

_Murdered. In the fighting. Before the flood._

_Shut up, shut the hell up…This isn't true. It's not right…_

"Que te pregnane…"

_She was pregnant._

"That's why," Azazel says slowly, carefully, "That's why little Sammy doesn't remember anything. But _you_ do, don't you, sport? You remember it all."

Everything's winding down inside him now. He barely feels it when he takes a breath. He's broken down and quiet inside, too tired to do anything but let what's inside him come out.

"Good. Good." Azazel pats Dean on the shoulder, and he doesn't even try to jerk away.

"The humans back in the day, oh, they knew how to worship. They'd fall on their knees in nothing flat. Today? Hmph. Angel video on YouTube. Feathers on eBay. They've been Touched By An Angel and all that crap. But _you_, you're going to take it to a whole new level this tired old world has never seen before. They'll do more than worship. They'll be in awe of you, boy."

"We all need a second chance in life, now don't we? This is yours. A second chance to redeem yourself. A second chance to prove yourself to me." Azazel kneels, traces the long curve of Dean's wings slowly, carefully, as if committing the details to memory. "Go on out there, son, and make me proud."

Dean's shoulders slump as the air around him thickens. He can feel himself falling backwards. Back into his flesh, and he doesn't know how he knows that, but he does. The angle is different this time; he's on his side now. He can smell alcohol and something soft and cool is pressed gingerly against his skin. The smell of water fills his nose, and for a moment it startles him. He's drowning again, but the memory fades as quickly as it surfaces. His skin ripples slightly as his wings twitch. The air above him is closed off. No open space.

_He's gonna be all right, he's gotta be all right, oh please God, please…_

_Sam._

Sam's bargaining with God or whoever is listening and_ it's too late, Sammy, it's too late, Dean _thinks to himself. He hasn't opened his eyes yet, and he knows that as soon as he does, as fucked up as everything is, it's about to get much, much_ worse_.

All it takes is that one simple gesture, and he can't avoid any of this.

Dean's eyes blink open, slowly, deliberately, and both Sam and Bobby relax. The relief they both feel makes Dean's skin crawl, but it lasts only a few seconds. He makes sure of that. He opens his eyes and stares at them.

Dean sees yellow, and he knows Sam and Bobby see it too.

Sam freezes. Bobby backs up slowly as he reaches for his shotgun.

_****_

000

TBC


	6. Two Birds, One Stone

A/N – Geez, I didn't think folks would like this story so much. Thank you for all the reviews and story/author alerts! I received so many compliments about my research into Nephilim and Grigori I realize that I forgot to give credit to my source: shaedowcat, over on Live Journal. I got the information from her excellent essay, _A Supernatural Theory. _I can't remember the rest of the title since my hard drive went belly up. If it weren't for her brilliant meta I wouldn't have gotten the idea for this in the first place.

_**Part 6 - Two Birds, One Stone**_

_**000**_

Hell looks just about what Gordon expects. Red as blood, flames, screams, body parts everywhere. He gets used to the smell of sulfur in the air pretty quickly.

While he was alive he never did think too much about where he'd end up after he died. The last emotion he felt in life was surprise when that little worm Kubrick got the drop on him and was able to shoot him in the first place.

Now he stands there as this thundercloud thing walks around him, inspecting him like he's some damn piece of meat. Gordon fingers the massive hole in his chest, where his heart used to be, and he ignores the bastard until it actually speaks to him in this low rumbling voice that does sound like distant thunder.

"Got a job for you, Walker. Might be something you'd be interested in."

"Now why the hell would I even want to work for your fugly ass?" Gordon drawls lazily.

The thundercloud shrugs. "Well, for one, it would make your life down here easier. You're not going anywhere else. That's just facts."

Gordon lifts his head, stares into those electric blue slits he thinks are the damn thing's eyes. "I don't do easy."

"Dean Winchester," the cloud thing says casually, and its smile is wide and crackles with electricity as Gordon's eyes narrow and his spirit-body tenses up.

"Thought that would get your attention. Dean Winchester is bought and paid for. We want him back. All of him."

"What's in it for me?"

"Sam Winchester."

Gordon nods, manages to keep his voice dry and casual. "I'm listening."

_**000**_

_Come here now…_

He does whatever she tells him to.

_That's a good boy…_

His head feels funny and his skin's gone numb.

Dark just wants her to shut the hell up. He would really love to wring Bela's neck like a chicken, twist her head all the way around to the back. He wants to, but he can't. He wants to hear that high-toned, snobby bitch choke and gurgle as his fingers close in around that slim throat of hers and squeeze. He wants that, for all the good it'll do.

People in Hell want ice water, too, and they don't get that, either.

Everything's a blur. He doesn't even remember lying down in the back of Bela's SUV, covered with a blanket. He doesn't know where they are now, doesn't remember the ride or even how long it took.

There was _that_, then there's _this_.

_Sit down here. That's right…_

She loops another string of containment amulets around his neck and chest and he almost groans out loud.

He doesn't like_ any_ of this, not one friggin' bit. Down in hell _he_ was the favored one. _He_ fit in, not that feathered freak.

"Such a good boy," Bela says mockingly.

"…f-fuck y-you…"

Bella leans down close enough so that Dark still has to squint to see her.

"I'm sorry." She quirks an eyebrow at him. "Didn't you already try to?" She fingers the hair at the back of his neck. She smiles as his skin trembles underneath her fingertips. "My mistake."

"…b-bitch…"

She shrugs. "I've been called all those names before,_ dear_. You really should try to expand your vocabulary. Learn new words, yeah?" She leans in closer, and her soft clean breath brushes against his ear. "I may be a bitch, but right now? I'm the bitch who owns _you_. You'd do well to remember that."

"Gotta get back." Dark laughs dazedly. He pulls and tugs weakly at the restraints with his wrists. "Boy's just a shadow of himself without me…"

"No, I don't think so." Bela looks bored. "I'll just call Dean out again."

"…won't…work," Dark says dazedly. "Wards…too damn strong. He'll bust himself up again, like he did before."

Bela draws back in surprise. A brief flash of anger darkens her features, and Dark smirks. "Damaged goods…bad for business, huh, sweetheart?"

She composes herself almost immediately. "You still have some value to me. That's good, for your sake. Fortunately my client now wants you _and_ Dean. Light and dark. A matched set."

"He's not _that_ light on the inside, bitch," Dark snorts. "Not anymore."

"Well, in that case, " and her smile is tight, cold, "I have some preparations to attend to. Be a good little boy and take a nap, won't you?"

Dark falls asleep as soon as she says the words. He dreams of killing her over and over again.

It's a good dream.

_**000**_

Creedie glances sideways at Kubrick as he drives. Kubrick's a damn good hunter with a solid game face, but this time Creedie can read him like an open book. After they dropped the Winchesters off at Bobby Singer's place they stayed parked down the road from there for a day or so, and the only reason they're moving now is to gas up. Creedie knows where they're headed after that, right back down the road from Singer Salvage Yard.

"Give it a rest, Kubrick. We did the best we could."

Kubrick frowns up. "I don't know if we did. I got a feeling, Creedie. It's not a bad one. Just…a feeling. This ain't over. We could've done more. We should've."

"More like what? We took care of Ballard and her guys. Stopped them. Those Winchesters don't have to worry about them or Gordon ever again."

Kubrick just shakes his head. He still looks dazed, the way he looked when he first laid eyes on Dean Winchester a couple of days ago.

"Been out here a while. You know that," Kubrick says slowly as they pull up next to the pumps at the Gas 'N' Gulp. "All that time, never saw anything like…_him_. Kid has wings, Creedie. Wings. I've seen demons, fangs, all kinds of hell bound bastards. First time I ever saw an angel. First damn time."

As soon as the RV stops Creedie gets up stiffly. He groans a little as his back complains. He heads for the door and his knees creak a little as he walks down the steps. Feels good to get out of that damned rolling box.

The young woman gassing her Jeep up at the pump behind him is cute and blonde and young enough to be his daughter. Creedie feels a twinge of guilt, but that doesn't stop him from glancing at her.

She looks at him and smiles, and the smile even reaches her eyes. Her pitch black eyes.

Sun's out, sky's clear blue, and the last thing Creedie thinks as darkness falls right on top of him is that they should have known better than to let their guard down like that.

_**000**_

Dark dreams, and he doesn't know why any dream of his would include Gordon Walker. Dark doesn't feel one way or another about the dude, although the fact that Gordon hates Sammy is a definite plus in his favor.

Dark doesn't expect that plume of oily black smoke to come slithering into the room underneath the doorframe in front of him. Gordie's ugly mug takes shape when the smoke shifts into human form.

"Huh…that's…that's a new look…for you…"

"Seems to be the day for it," Gordon says quietly. He takes it all in, the wings, the amulets, and then he nods slowly. "You're a _part_ of Dean, but you're not _all _of him."

"I'm the best part," Dark says tiredly. "Don't really need the rest."

Gordon snorts as he sniffs the air. "Big bad like you gets taken down by a woman. A human female. Huh. Maybe _you're_ the part they don't need."

"Go to hell."

"Been there. Already done that." Gordon looks around warily. "Sam around?"

"No. Just…that bitch. You gotta…get me out of this…"

"Maybe later." Gordon shrugs. "Learned a few new tricks while I was down under. Don't go anywhere." Gordon laughs.

He dissolves into smoke again, and he glides up into the air over Dark's left shoulder, towards the other door at Dark's back. It's all Dark can do but just sit there and breathe in and out. He's weak. He hates being weak.

After a while the door behind him opens up, and for a moment he gets confused. Sounds like Bela, smells like her, but different. Bela comes around in front to face him, and Dark looks up at her blearily. It takes a while to bring everything into focus, but his sight finally clears.

She jerks and quivers, an unwilling puppet on a string as Gordon settles in deeper underneath her skin.

Bela's eyes are pitch black.

"That's better," Gordon makes her say out loud, and Dark smiles a little.

_**000**_

Since I don't have a working computer at home and I'm posting from the library, all my updates on this and other stories will be shorter than usual. I also wanted to give the confrontation between Dean/Adin, Sam and Bobby its own chapter. That's up next.


	7. Ties That Bind

_**Chapter 7 – Ties That Bind**_

A/N – Dark cusses. He's got good reason to.

_**000**_

_Bobby, please, pull the trigger…_

Dean wills it, but nothing happens.

Bobby and Sam will be the last thing he ever sees in life, and that's not a bad thing, he accepts it, he wants it, but Bobby hesitates. He holds the shotgun down, towards the floor, and Dean knows he's out of time as he's jerked backwards deep into his skin. He breathes in darkness and it fills him up, drags him down even further.

Dean blinks and Adin opens his eyes.

There's some kind of weapon in the older human's hand, but it doesn't matter. A hard mental push against the Sea of Tranquility pressure point in the chest and the human goes down, limp, unconscious.

He's not dead. Not yet, anyway.

Little brother startles, turns towards the human…"Bobby…"

Adin's eyes narrow. _That_ has to stop.

_He's not your family. I am._

_I am. _

The shell of his right ear tingles with sense memory. He remembers pressing his ear against Amaris' slightly swollen belly, and he smiled a little as he felt a movement, a kick. He'd never laid eyes on his brother before, and to go from that tiny ripple underneath his mother's soft skin to _this_: his little brother's alive and breathing, broad-shouldered, gloriously, almost freakishly tall, shaggy haired, with hazel eyes.

"Sam," Adin grates out roughly. The word feels strange and flat on his tongue. It's the only name he'd understand. The boy died before Amaris could name him.

Sam checks the older man's vitals but he's already turning away from him, turning back in Adin's direction, where he belongs.

"Dean?"

There it is again. _That name._ Not _his_. Not _him_.

The skin on Adin's right side ripples and lightens. Shattered ribs knit back together and lift themselves back into place. What's damaged becomes undamaged in reverse, all over his body. Bruises fade, tendons tighten and snap back into place.

Adin doesn't even flinch.

_**000**_

Bastard's taking his own sweet time removing those amulets. Dark doesn't trust himself _not_ to say something rude or smart-ass, not _yet _anyway. He's _evil_, not _stupid_. He's still a little light-headed from all that blessed metal touching his skin. All the energy's been leached out of him, and it's all he can do but sit there and breathe in and out.

"That last one," Gordon/Bela says slowly. "That's the one that binds you to this meat suit, right?"

He's inside her, so he knows good and damn well it is. Dark feels intense irritation, but he needs another pair of hands to pull the damn thing off, so he keeps quiet and nods.

"Thought so." Bela's mouth turns up into a smirk. "I'll just leave it on for now."

Dark blinks once, twice, and then it hits him. He_ gets_ it. "_What?_ No, you can't _do_ that…"

"Yeah, I can." Gordon drawls lazily. "Don't want you running off like you did before."

"Like I did…_what the hell?_"

"The things that own you think that you and Dean escaped together."

"That's not…he left…I _followed_ him."

Bela smiles slyly. "My point exactly."

"I came up here to bring that freak back…"

"Then why am _I_ here?"

Dark shakes his head dazedly. "You can't _do_ this…"

"Yeah, I can. Now shut the hell up."

Dark does. His eyes fade from pitch black to light hazel.

Gordon pats him on the head. "That's a good boy. Now we have to talk about tracking Dean down. Can you sense where he is?"

_Hell yeah, but I won't tell you. Go fuck yourself…_

Dark feels his lips move. "Yes." His shoulders sag in defeat. _Son of a freakin' bitch…_

"All right." Gordon's smile gets wider. "Now, here's what we're gonna do…"

_**000**_

My client has Dean's best interests at heart…

Sam hates them both right now, Bela and whoever her client is, but he's pretty sure that they didn't cause Dean's eyes to turn yellow. The bitch tried to summon Dean, sure enough, tried to steal him away, but from what Sam saw Dean was under attack on two fronts, the summoning and that shadow at his back.

Three, if you count Bobby's grounding wards. God help him, Sam feels a stab of anger at Bobby for that, too. There was too much blood, too many bruises and broken bones.

Not anymore, though.

_He's magnificent. A work of art. _

Dean sits cross-legged on the bed, inhumanly perfect once again, wildly beautiful. A ripple of tension runs through layers of feathers as his wings flex and lift slightly at his back. Sam realizes with a shock that those golden eyes suit Dean just as much as the wings do. He looks otherworldly, something that hadn't been seen on earth in ages. Dean's eyes are a clearer yellow now, with just a hint of darkness swirling underneath the surface.

Sam stares at his brother, and Dean stares right back, but the look is different than it was out in the yard. Out there, with the shadow at his back, there was recognition in Dean's eyes, but there was a maliciousness too. Dean would have cheerfully, gleefully wrung Sam's neck if he'd managed to get his hands on him.

There was someone else inside Dean then, and Sam knew that Dean was hanging on by a thread.

This look is different. It's calmer, more intense. Dean stares at Sam like he's committing every detail about him to memory. It's an open honest gaze. He recognizes Sam, and that gives Sam hope.

False hope maybe, but hope all the same. It might mean that Dean's still in there, might mean that whatever else is in his body hasn't taken over completely.

Behind him Sam hears Bobby breathe slowly, steadily, in and out. That's a sound Sam intends to keep right on hearing. He's lost too much this past year. No more. No one else.

First things first. He needs more information. Needs to put a name to what he's dealing with.

Sam moves forward, slowly. Dean tilts his head slightly to one side and his expression sharpens. He stares alertly at Sam as Sam kneels in front of him.

"Christo," Sam says in a clear voice.

No reaction. Nothing.

That's good in a way, bad in another. Sam's heart sinks just a little. Just goes to show how fucked up everything is when he realizes that he was hoping that Dean was just possessed.

"Dean?"

That gets a reaction. Dean frowns up a little. He draws back slightly, and Sam sees something he can't quite identify in those yellow eyes.

Names have power. Sam knows that to be true. It's a little too "Me Tarzan, You Jane" and he knows it, but sometimes simple is better.

Dean watches as Sam puts his hand over his own heart. "Sam. I'm Sam."

Dean's eyes narrow. His shoulders tense up a little, then relaxes just as quickly. "Adin," he whispers at last.

Sam relaxes a little. _Adin_. Okay then. Not so bad so far. _Adin_. Not _Lucifer_, or God forbid, _Azazel_. So far, so good.

"Adin," Sam repeats the name out loud. He's already thinking ahead, trying to remember if he's ever heard of that name before.

What happens next happens fast. No warning, just a slight tensing of Dean's muscles as he lifts his right arm up. Sam glimpses something dark in the palm of Dean's hand, a mask tattoo, a sigil of some kind, pitch black with golden eyes.

I'm sorry, Sam. Only way I can talk to you. Only way I can make you see…

It's Dean's voice, all rough and sad, and Sam doesn't like the note of finality in it. He thinks about lifting his right hand to grab Dean's wrist. He thinks about it, but he can't. Nothing works.

Dean pushes his palm hard against Sam's forehead, and everything around Sam slides into blackness.

_**000**_


	8. Searchlight

_**Chapter 8: Searchlight**_

A/N: Thought I'd do something different this chap, give you guys an idea what Dean and Dark were up to right after they escaped from hell. Can you say "Cloverfield"?

If you're wondering who Bela's client is, wonder no more.

Disclaimer: Don't own Dean, Sam or Bobby. Darn.

**_

* * *

__Searchlight Procurement Project – Department of Homeland Security_**

_**Preliminary Notes on Case Designate Archangel Michael**_

Attachments to this report: cell phone picture of subject; source: _Lugosi, B_; date/time stamp (Classified) _Lugosi, B._(see cross-referenced file _Talbot, Bela) _is a reliable source for special materials. No further indications of subject's possible abilities; once subject is acquired testing will explore parameters, if any.

Photo analysis of injuries indicates they are superficial and none are life-threatening. Further communication from _B. Lugosi_ indicates that subject somehow resisted acquisition. _Lugosi _also indicates that subject was able to heal himself of previous injuries.

Subject appears to be male Caucasian, approximate age twenty two to 28 years of age. Hair: shoulder length. Hair color: sandy blond. Eye Color: unable to determine at this time since subject was photographed with eyes closed. Wing span: 12 feet. Estimated weight (sans wings): 180 lbs. With wings: Unknown. Composition: Feathers. Color: Shaded light blue.

Visual analysis of wing span and composition indicates that wing structure is genuine and is sufficient to provide lift; powered/guided flight is probable.

**Preliminary Notes on Case Designate Archangel Gabriel**

Attachments to this report: cell phone picture of subject; date/time stamped (Classified)

_Lugosi, B._ (see cross-referenced file _Talbot, Bela) _is a reliable source for special materials. No further indications of subject's possible abilities; once subject is acquired testing will explore parameters if any. Analysis of identical face and body similarities indicates that _Michael_ and _Gabriel_ are related. Variations exist in skin and hair color; eye color undetermined.

Recent communication from _B. Lugosi_ indicates that _Archangel Gabriel_ was procured without injury and at time of last communication remains confined without incident at unknown location.

Subject appears to be male Caucasian, approximate age twenty two to 28 years of age. Hair: short. Hair color: dark blonde. Eye Color: green. Wing span: 12 feet. Estimated weight (sans wings): 180 lbs. With wings: Unknown. Composition: Leather-like membrane. Color: Dark brown.

Visual analysis of wing span and composition indicates that wing structure appears genuine and is sufficient to provide lift; powered/guided flight is probable.

Report compiled by

B. Murphy, Analyst

* * *

_**Searchlight Procurement Project – Department of Homeland Security**_

**_Sighting__s__ of Case Designates Archangel Michael and Archangel Gabriel_**

Attachments to this report include still photos, cell phone photos, print media coverage and videos of aforementioned subject. Summaries of material is as follows:

**Attachment #1**

Date/time: Classified

Type: Digital photos

Incident Location : UB4Alpha

Taken by: Civilians (Cross-reference files on _Halpern, Daniel, Grey, Anita_)

Notes: Also cross–reference files on _Devil's Gate, Wyoming_.

Picture quality: Excellent

Summary: Sequence of photos show large vortex forming in the ground in remote wooded area near hiking trail and emergence of long plumes of black smoke, along with two blurred figures flying upward at a high rate of speed (estimated 100 mph at height of arc). Digital enhancement of digital images indicates that first figure appears to be _Archangel Michael_, followed closely by _Archangel Gabriel_.

Number of photos in sequence: 17

Attachments: Analysis of and soil samples taken at location taken by field ops.

* * *

_**Attachment #2**_

Date/time: Classified

Type: Videotape

Incident Location : CA12USHWY

Taken by: Civilians (WPTX news team, cross-reference files on _Macy, Thomas, and Anderson, Stephen_)

Picture quality: Excellent

Notes: Video was later discredited as a hoax by embedded field ops experts; Macy and Thomas were summarily fired by WPTX.

Summary: Video taken from WPTX helicopter shows _Archangel Michael_ alighting on ground near scene of five car wreck on highway. Subject moves from car to car, effortlessly pulling open and extracting victims from car.

Victims reported feeling warm and disoriented when subject laid hands on them. Hospital reports indicate that all victims emerged from accident unharmed, despite mangled condition of vehicles and blood splatter at scene that matched some of the victims' blood types.

Subject also approached victim who was ejected through windshield of car. Subject _Michael_ was also observed laying hands on victim. Victim (cross-reference files on S_olik, Andre_) was also found to be uninjured despite ejection from vehicle. _Michael_ took flight immediately after making sure that occupants of all cars were removed and unharmed.

Cross-reference files on victims: _Brady, Eric; Brady, Samantha; Sanderson, Robert; Crawford, Alice, Townsend, Edward; Cohen, Anthony; Emmerlich, R.D.; Clayton, Oliver, Nelson, Vivian; Hudgens, Jessica. _

Unknown if subject caused accident; prior involvement appears highly unlikely. Investigation by local authorities revealed cell phone usage as cause of accident.

Time of video: approximately 11 minutes.

* * *

_**Attachment #3**_

Date/Time: Classified

Type: Videotape

Incident Location:

Taken By: Civilian (Cross-reference files on _Stovall, Henry_)

Picture quality: Good

Summary: Video shows two victims (cross-reference files on _Carey, Gregory_ and _Tibbets, Richard_) walking plowed field as third victim (_Stovall, Henry_) stands approximately one hundred feet away with camera at ground level. Subject later identified as _Archangel Gabriel_ makes low level pass at high rate of speed and knocks both men to ground.

_Stovall_ is unable to hold camera steady. Victims are overheard screaming and after screaming stops subject _Gabriel_ is observed hovering in mid-air with victims'severed heads in his possession. Subject appears to be judging heads and laughing.

Third victim (_Stovall, Henry_) is overheard on tape yelling and screaming. Subject _Gabriel _drops heads and attacks victim _Stovall_. Last frame in video is extreme close-up of _Archangel Gabriel_.

Notes: Camera was smashed, but was later recovered by ops team. Due to fatalities of all involved no further action deemed necessary.

* * *

_**Attachment #4**_

Date/time: Classified

Type: Videotape

Incident Location : W4BSVKS

Taken by: Civilians (Cross-reference files on _Kent, Clark_ and_ Lang, Lana_)

Picture quality: Good

Notes: After posting on YouTube video was later discredited as a hoax by field ops experts; no further action taken.

Summary: Video taken from barn nearby; photo enhancement reveals subject believed to be _Archangel Michael_ standing on wheat silo in mid-morning sun. Subject remains motionless for approximately seven minutes, during which time doves circle the air around subject. Several birds alight on his hands and shoulders. Subject does not react in a hostile manner. _Archangel Michael_ then takes flight without further incident.

Time of video: approximately 10 minutes.

* * *

_**Attachment #5**_

Date/time: Classified

Type: Videotape

Incident Location: T47BKE

Taken by: Civilians (Cross-reference files on _Thready, Michael_, and _Hansen, Georgia_)

Picture quality: Good

Notes: Original tape secured by field ops. Due to wide distribution to local and national network news media, no further action was taken.

Summary: Video taken from ground level shows _Archangel Gabriel_ divebombing small Cessna aircraft while in flight. Motive remains unknown, but it appears that subject was attempting to cause aircraft to crash.

Subject succeeded in forcing down three aircraft. All victims aboard perished (cross-reference files Bassey, Herbert; Winwood, David; Caulley, Frederick; Slay, James; Robb, Nicholas; Batt, Monica; Martin, Oz; Fulton, Terry).

Time of video: approximately 40 minutes.

* * *

_**Attachment #6**_

Date/time: Classified

Type: Still photos

Incident Location : 460T3KS

Taken by: Civilians (Cross-reference _Haddon, Emory_, and _Davis, Jason_)

Picture quality: Excellent

Notes: Original photos and negatives were later acquired by field ops after posting on Live Journal and MySpace. No further action taken.

Summary: Photo taken in cemetery. Photo shows_ Archangel Michael_ crouched on ground before headstone (cross-reference file – _Winchester, Mary) _

_Notes:_ Additional cross-reference to _Winchester, John (deceased); Winchester, Dean (b. 1979); Winchester, Samuel (b. 1983)._

Subject appears to be distraught, in obvious emotional distress, with one hand touching the lettering on headstone. Subject was observed by civilians in this stationary position unmoving for approximately ten minutes, after which subject took flight, leaping straight up from a crouched position. Subject disappeared from view almost immediately.

Number of photos in sequence: 12

* * *

_**Attachment #8**_

Compilation of Weekly World News articles headed "Aerial Battle Between Good and Evil In Skies Over Midwest."

Due to the dubious nature of this publication it is highly doubtful that any credibility will be given to these eyewitness accounts. Photos are blurred and unclear. Timeline would indicate ground sightings of _Archangels Michael_ and _Gabriel_. Digital enhancement reveals details associated with both subjects.

Notes: No action to be taken against eyewitnesses.

Number of articles: 4

Report compiled by

J. Dugan, Analyst

* * *

_**Searchlight Procurement Project – Department of Homeland Security**_

_**Re: Winchester, Dean**_

Tentative identification of _Archangel Michael_ as _Dean Winchester_, b. 1979, Lawrence, Kansas. Extensive research of Winchester genealogy reveals no mention of twin, or third Winchester sibling. _Samuel Winchester_ is only other sibling on record.

Notes: Cross-reference criminal record of _Winchester, Dean_ (credit card fraud, suspect in several unsolved multiple homicides, grave desecration, bank robbery, assault).

Hospital records and Division of Family Service records indicate that subject was possibly abused by father, _Winchester, John (deceased)._ Compilation of hospital records secured nationwide indicate subject sustained and was treated for various minor and serious (often life-threatening) injuries since the age of nine.

Also, see attachment – psychological profile (DFS); outlines Attachment Disorder and possible mental aberrations following death of mother (cross-reference _Winchester, Mary_ – deceased).

Procurement of education records nationwide for this subject indicate high intelligence, disregard for authority, possible Attention Deficit Disorder.

Interviews with law enforcement personnel indicate subject is charismatic and antagonistic towards law enforcement and authority figures. _(_Cross reference files on_ Hendricksen, Victor)._ Various escapes from custody also indicate that subject is well versed in lock-picking and law enforcement procedures.

Winchester was also reported killed in explosion which also killed FBI Special Agents Hendrickson and Reidy. Report may have been in error (cross-reference with _Winchester, Samuel_, b. 1984).

Notes: _Lugosi,_ _B._ has failed to call in with progress reports on acquisition of _Archangel Michael_.

Recommendation: Agency should use field ops to pinpoint locations of _Archangels Michael _and_ Gabriel _and acquire same as soon as possible.

Addendum by

P. Graham, Analyst

* * *

See that little button down at the bottom of the page? Click on it and let me know what you think. Another update by this weekend.


	9. Dean's Interlude Lost Cause

_**Chapter 9 – Dean's Interlude: Lost Cause**_

A/N: Right now I wanna take the time to thank everyone who's following this twisted little tale of mine. Wanted to put this in with the other chapter, with Bela, Dark, and Kubrick, but Dean had _other_ ideas. Young Mr. Winchester wanted the legendary Winchester angst to have a chapter all its own, so here it is. Dean also cusses up a blue streak. Don't say I didn't warn ya. Italics indicate thoughts and flashbacks.

"Ask me if there's water in hell." – Stolen -- I mean, _borrowed_ from "Constantine." Also, the sentence about "a majorly dangerous day at the office" taken from "Fresh Blood."

Summary: Sam's got questions, and Dean's got answers. Only problem is, Sam might not like Dean's answers.

Disclaimer: Don't own Dean or Sam. Darn.

_**000**_

Sam can already tell he's sitting down, his back jammed up against something rock hard, slick and solid. He takes a deep hitching breath, breathes in and out normally, and that's when his nose and his brain begins to sort out the various smells in the air.

Burning gasoline. Melted rubber. Sharp smell of melted plastic. There's one smell that overrides all of the others. It's the smell of roasted pork, sweet and smoky.

That last one bothers the hell out of Sam. He's smelled it before, on jobs.

Burnt human flesh smells like pork.

His eyes blink open.

Something soft and feathery floats in the air right in front of his eyes. It brushes up against his skin. Sam raises one hand and bats at it. It takes him a moment to identify what it is, and even then, he refuses to believe it, but on one level he's mentally calculating just how many humans it would take to produce that much fine grey ash.

He gets to his feet on legs that feel as shaky and wobbly as a newborn colt's, bracing himself against the wall with his hands. His insides feel funny, his head complains bitterly about the change in position. He stands there a moment, feeling lightheaded.

The airspace over his head stretches out, light and dark shades of red in the sky, and that's _definitely_ not right. The sun's a dim yellow disk in the sky overhead. Something darker glides underneath the clouds, twisting and turning just outside of Sam's line of sight. Sam feels like hunkering down low, wants to search for the nearest doorway, so he can get _inside_. He doesn't want to be out _there_, up high, wherever _there_ is, but when he glances over at the edge he sees broad shoulders in a black fatigue jacket, dark blond spiky hair, faded blue jeans and work boots.

Dean.

Dean leans forward over the ledge of the observation platform with that easy devil may care grace of his. No wings. No golden eyes. The wind ruffles his hair slightly and Dean doesn't even seem to notice that he's mere inches away from a one hundred and ten story drop to the pavement.

"Dean…what…what is all this?" Sam croaks as he stumbles forward.

"It's the end of the world, dude. Well, it's a preview, anyway," Dean says casually, like he's discussing what's on the lunch menu and what gloriously unhealthy concoction he's going to have today.

"The end of the world?" Sam says stupidly.

Dean nods. "Hell's throwing a coming out party. My invite got lost in the mail but I got one anyway."

Sam eases forward and cautiously leans forward. He looks down and around, and his guts tighten painfully. Banners and trails of ash curve skyward all around them. They're up high on the observation deck of the Sears Tower. They've been to Chicago on business before but they didn't have time to sightsee. As usual, they had a job to do, they did it, and they left.

Business as usual. _Life_ as usual.

There's no life left down there, not _any_, from what Sam can see. All the windows in all the buildings all around are blown out, black screaming mouths, stretched wide. Sheets of smoke and flames lazily curl upward from the street to the horizon, as far as the eye can see.

Down below Sam can see wrecked cars, trucks and buses scattered along the streets like some giant kid unended his or her toy box and decided to scatter everything all around in the mother of all temper tantrums.

Something's moving down there, among all the twisted metal and smoke and flame, and Sam doesn't want to see clearly, doesn't want to get a good look at whatever it is.

Dean's voice is deceptively light, casual. Anyone who didn't know him would say that he was uncaring, unimpressed.

Sam knows better.

"Day I died…I never got the chance to say goodbye to you, you know? Didn't have any problem holding up my end of the deal, but I _did_ want to say goodbye, Sam. _I did_. I tried to hold on, but I couldn't."

Sam just nods. "I know you did."

Sam's seen Dean like this only a few times before. Last time they were here in Chicago, just before they went after Meg and her damned Daevas, just before Dad showed up.

_Why do you think I take you everywhere with me, huh?_

On that roadside, a year ago, right after they interred that zombie girl again and Dean wanted to burn rubber right then and there, couldn't wait to get away from the damned cemetery after he glanced over at Mary Winchester's grave.

_What's dead should stay dead. When I came back…it wasn't right. It wasn't natural, and look what's come of it. Dad's dead. Dad's dead because of me. So tell me, what could you possibly say that would make that all right?_

Dean's open, vulnerable, and ready to talk. He_ needs_ to talk. Sam can count the number of times that's happened in his life on his hands and still have plenty of fingers left over, so he just nods and shuts up.

And listens.

"They can't do this without me," Dean nods downwards. "Leastways, that's what they tell me. They got the bright idea once I went downside." He leans forward, stares at the smoke and flames, at the ribbons of ash, then shrugs his broad shoulders.

_Doesn't matter_, that gesture says. _No big deal, just another day at the office. Another majorly dangerous day at the office. No sweat. No prob. _

"It's not a united front down there like we thought. Good thing, too, 'cause humans would be in deep shit if it was. They fight among themselves down there. It's like a friggin' soap opera, y'know? Twenty four seven. All the damn time.

"Anyway. Crossroads Bitch sold me to this one group. Don't know what her original plan for me was, but somethin' about me scared her. Couldn't wait to get rid'a me, so she did.

"Next thing I knew I'm doin' a damn American Idol audition, only instead of three judges must'a been three million of the scaly hell bound bastards. I didn't get to go to Hollywood, Sammy, but I must've passed…"

Sam remembers how Dean's mind works, the intuitive connections Dean makes, the way his brain jumps from one subject to another, seemingly without any connection. Doesn't make any sense to anyone who doesn't know Dean, but Sam's known him all his life, so he's not thrown for a loop by what Dean does and says next.

Dean laughs.

It's a short, humorless bark of laughter. His eyes go flat for a moment, then he immediately brightens up and even smirks a little. "Ask me if there's water in hell."

Sam quirks an eyebrow at him. "Well? Is there?"

Dean nods. "Bet your ass there is. It's cold. Cold, slick, and slimy. Doesn't feel right against your bare skin. Bastards tried to drown me in a pool of black water." He places both palms flat against the cool marble and stares at his outstretched fingers. "The wings bothered them, y'know? They didn't like the wings. Or the feathers. That must've fucked with the design they had in mind for me. Bat wings, or something. Hell, I don't know. I kept having flashes, weird trippy stuff. Past lives…"

_"You betrayed me, boy," Azazel growled roughly. "Sided with Heaven against your own flesh and blood…"_

"Saw shit I'd only ever seen before in history books, or on the 'net." Dean tenses up slightly, and for a moment Sam senses that he's on right on the edge in more ways than one. "Saw you, Dad and me on the road. I even saw Mom, before…" another small shrug "…you know…"

Then Dean grins a little, looks genuinely happy, the first time Sam's seen him like that in days. "Hey, you remember that tenth grade teacher of mine, Mrs. Paulsen? When Dad and I were hunting that Sasquatch up in Michigan and Dad had to come in for a parent-teacher conference because of me? Man, she was_ really_ something. Alice, I think her name was. She wore leopard skin underwear underneath that plain brown suit of hers, Sammy. Had a rose tattoo on her left…"

Sam rolls his eyes in mock weariness. "Dude, you're getting off topic."

"Oh. Yeah. Right." Dean's smile fades back down to that curiously blank look he always gets whenever he talks about something he'd rather not talk about. "They finally decided to get their money's worth out of me. I still don't know _what_ they paid that bitch for me. Hope she fucking chokes on whatever it was. I was told that I needed to be reminded of my place."

Sam flinches a little, and Dean seems not to notice. "I needed a few minor adjustments before they could use me." He could be talking about giving the Impala a tune-up. "That was how I met The Fixer. Chick has a lot of names. Tia Maleficum. She Who Devours In the Pit. Damn bastards love to hear themselves talk, and they do love to give themselves names."

_Her skin was smooth, midnight blue. Her eyes were bright red. She didn't have any feet, and she floated above the ground. That was the worst. Dean didn't think that would have bothered him, but it did._

_Oh yeah, that and the fact that the bitch grinned at him like he was her long-lost favorite plaything._

_She was surrounded from head to toe by this long flowing drape of inky black smoke thet flowed around her, and the hem of her dress (?) curled and flexed like tentacles. He saw what looked like mouths down there._

_Slim fingers stroked the side of his face, and Dean felt like screaming. He'd promised himself he wouldn't, but later on he did..._

"She fixed me all right. Fucked me up but good. They staked me out on the ground. She didn't come at me with the claws and the knives like I thought she would. What this bitch did was worse. She talked to me. Dad taught us some ways to ignore mental torture, you know? But nothing I did worked. I couldn't keep her damn voice out of my head…."

_You're such a failure, Dean. A magnificent failure…_

_Fuck you, bitch. Get out of my head. Get out of my head right fuckin' now. I will kill you when I get loose, I swear it…_

_Such a scared, angry little boy. That's all you are. But you're a scared angry little boy with lethal combat skills. You could be soo useful to us, but you're afraid you'll fail at that, too…_

"I tried to block her voice out, dude. I tried. Sometimes it felt like my whole body was on fire. Pins and needles underneath my skin. After a while it felt like my brain was going numb. After a while her voice sounded like my voice…"

_My own damn voice..._

_I hate them both. Sam and Dad. All those things I gave up for them. Every time I got hurt. And for what? To keep a family together? What family? Lost that when Mom died…_

_You're right, my little one. You're so right. Doesn't it feel good to admit that now?_

_Dean feels his lips move, hears his voice, feels the words as they come out of his mouth, but it's not me, it's not me, I wouldn't say those things, I wouldn't…_

_And a part of him knows that's just not true._

"I don't know how long it went on. Days. Weeks, maybe." Dean glances up and sees the pained look on Sam's face and seems to realize what he's just said. He shakes his head. "Sammy, _don't_. I know that look of yours. I'm not sayin' all this to make you feel guilty. I just want you to understand. Wasn't your fault. None of it. I knew what I was doing when I made the deal. You didn't fail me. You never did."

"What did…" Sam's surprised he sounds calm. "What did she do to you?"

"She reached inside and pulled him out of me."

Sam blinks in confusion. "Pulled…who?"

"Remember when I used to read Peter Pan to you, Sam? When we were kids, you liked the part about Pan trying to sew his shadow back on. She pulled my shadow out of me. That was what they were after all along. Hurt like a son of a bitch. She laughed while she did it."

"If I don't get to him first, and you ever meet this bastard, you drop him. Drop him like a damn bad habit, bro'. _Permanently_. He's a handsome devil. Looks just like me, and he'll use that against you if he can. Don't let him. He's a part of me. He's every bad thought I ever had while I was alive. Think of it, Sammy. We all have our dark spots, and here was mine, with Dad's training, leather wings, and all the rage I felt because our family got screwed over."

The air up there on the rooftop is warm, but Sam tries not to shudder as a cold chill rakes its way up his spine. Months before Dean died they hunted a foul-tempered fire demon that was bound to a factory. The good news was the factory was deserted; the bad news was it was a popular hang-out for teenagers, so naturally several of 'em got parboiled before Sam and Dean showed up. After they put its fire out permanently the boys stumble/walked into a bar, sat down at a table and ordered beers and hamburgers. Several of the local yokels at a table nearby spotted them and even though he was dead tired and the jukebox was blasting "Hillbilly Deluxe" Sam could still hear what they were saying.

"Aw, ain't that cute…"

"...pretty damn boys..."

"…that one with the lips, I betcha he's sweet..."

Dean raised his head and silently dropped his gaze on the mouthy bastards like a gunsight. It was _The Look._

_The Look_ promised much asskicking, and at the end a slow, painful death.

It worked. The mouthy bastards shut the hell up. _Instantly_.

Dean scowled as he looked at the soot on his fingers. They'd tried to clean up in the gas station as well as they could. Dean rubbed his fingers together and muttered, more to himself, "Waste of friggin' space. We do the job and nearly get bar-b-qued, and for _what_? I tell ya, Sam, next time we should just let their sorry asses burn."

"Afterwards he went home with her and I was kicked to the curb. He was the prince, and I was just another fucked up freak.

"They didn't lock me up. Well, I _was _down in Hell, right? Where was I gonna _go_? I found places to hide. Couldn't fly, not at first, but I could manage. I climbed up to some of the higher places in the rocks. That high up, all the noise and screaming goes down to background noise. Didn't even notice the sulfur smell after a while."

Sam was pretty sure there was a lot more that Dean wasn't telling. He was getting the Reader's Digest version. Whatever had really happened down there was a hundred times worse.

"Some of the damn demons tried to sneak up on me.

"Sometimes I wasn't fast enough. Whatever they did always healed in time for the next go round. I was fair game. So I moved around. I stuck to the high places. Higher you go, the thinner the border between earth and hell. I saw holes up there, in the sky, the roof. They'd close up before I could get to them, so I practiced. Got better flying. I had those damn wings and I couldn't get rid of 'em, so I may as well use 'em, right?

"One day, I saw _you_. I heard _you_. And you, you big dumbass, you went on hunts by yourself. Tried to get yourself killed. Because of me." Dean turns to look directly at Sam, and there's anger in his eyes, but there's sadness too. "That Ruby girl ditched you as soon as I left. That was when I knew I had to get the hell out of there.

"I was ready the next time one of those holes opened up. Only thing was, my shadow followed me out when I made my move.

"Once I got topside everything got pretty blurry. Don't remember much. Blue skies. Blood, screaming. I saw Mom again. Tried to touch her but I couldn't hold on. I kept seeing you, Sam. Heard you. You were sad and pissed off at me for leaving, and I couldn't blame you for that.

"I saw it when Gordon came for you at Bobby's place. Tried to make it there in time but I ran into my shadow, and I mean that literally. I hated flying. Fucking hated it, and here I was playing chicken with my dark side a thousand feet off the ground. I didn't back off, and neither did he.

"I hit the ground pretty hard. Last thing I remember was this hunter. Crazy looking chick. Laughed like a friggin' hyena. She and her three buddies jumped me and I couldn't fight them off."

_Didn't want to._

Dean stares straight ahead, at the ruins of Chicago, and Sam feels a small pit forming in his stomach. Dean's leading up to something, and Sam knows it. It's something he's familiar with, something he's feared and hated all his life. Sam calls it The Speech, he's heard various forms of it at one time or another, and he hates it with a passion.

Dean turns to look Sam square in the eyes. "You have to let me go."

_Ah, God._ Sam feels his stomach lurch down around his ankles.

"For good this time. I'm fucked up, Sam. More than I was before. You can't fix me, and you can't save me. You gotta let me go. You gotta live your life this time around."

_Not again. Not again._ "I'm not going to bail on you, Dean. I'm not."

Dean's shoulders actually sag. "You're not listening to me. Why the hell won't you listen to me? I'm not your brother anymore. I'm not safe to be around. I could look at you before, and I could _remember_. I could remember _who_ I am. _What_ I am. I'm hanging on by a thread now, bro', and when we go back to Bobby's I won't be there all the time..."

There's something else. _Someone_ else that Dean won't mention. Sam could always tell whenever Dean was being evasive. Big brother's not always as slick as he thinks he is, and Sam gets it. "Who's Adin, Dean? Where did _he_ come from?"

Dean shakes his head dazedly. He looks trapped, somehow, bewildered. It's not a look that Sam's used to seeing on Dean, and it scares the hell out of Sam.

"I can't tell you that..." Dean pushes himself away from the ledge. He stumbles as he does it, suddenly clumsy, weak and awkward. Sam steps up to him and catches him by the shoulders.

Dean doesn't even startle at Sam's touch. "Who's Adin, Dean?" Sam repeats himself, more gently. "Who is he?"

Dean blinks. Slowly. Sam sees the change in his eyes, sees that bright green slowly fade, then brighten to that damn golden yellow.

"Do I need to draw you a map, Sam?" That smooth deep voice drawls lazily. The inflection is different. It's Dean, but it's _not_. "Are you really that damn stupid?"

_**000**_

Will update later on this week.


	10. Mysterious Ways

_**Chapter 10 - Mysterious Ways**_

A/N: This is the original ending to _**Dean's Interlude – Lost Cause.**_ It was on another diskette and I couldn't find it when I posted Chapter 9 the other day, so rather than just tacking it onto nine I decided to post it as the next chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own John, Dean or Sam.

* * *

There are people up there in those clouds.

Dean stands there on the top of the hillside, blinking slowly in the sunlight. The air's clear fresh, no sulfur smell, no stench of burning flesh. No pain. _Anywhere. _His wings aren't gone, not really. They're folded neatly underneath his skin this time, sight pressure across his shoulder blades and down his back.

He watches the movement in the clouds overhead and the muscles of his back twitch slowly in response.

_Angels are watching over you, Dean._

_Damn._

If they weren't _before_, they sure in the hell are _now_, and God help him, the first thing he feels is an intense flash of anger.

_Where were you bastards when my mother burned, huh?_

Dean stares up at the clouds above and his vision sharpens. He shouldn't be able to pick out details like that, not from that distance. But then again, normal's the last thing he's worried about. He hasn't felt normal in a long time, like _never_.

He sees faces in sharp detail. Hair color. Eye color. Smooth metallic body armor, gleaming bronze and silver breastplates. Some of them sit with their wings folded against their backs. Some sit with their wings fully extended. These aren't those wimpy Hallmark angels, fat little winged cherubs who couldn't bust a grape. These angels are sleek, deadly. They're not all male, either. The females have the same athletic look as the males. They're all ages, shapes, colors and sizes, and they sit or stand in the clouds all above him. Waiting.

Dean zeroes in on one in particular. She's tall, with long wavy red hair. The corners of her lips twitch into a slight smile, and damn, she looks right back at him.

"Hello, beautiful. Sweetheart, you look like you could kick Godzilla's ass," Dean mutters out loud. He hears a low deep chuckle behind him that makes his insides ache so much he freezes in place.

_No. _

"Hello, son."

Dean turns slowly and stares. Figures. One more cosmic kick in the ass. One more insult to injury. His eyes narrow dangerously. "Christo."

"That's not what this is about," John rumbles softly. He stands there, loose, relaxed and easy, his hands jammed into his jeans pockets.

"Oh? It's _not_? Then you tell me what it's about, _Dad_," Dean says pointedly. "Or whoever you are. You tell me _exactly_ what the hell all this is about."

John nods. "Fair enough."

_**000**_

John talks. Dean doesn't say much at first. All the stuff he _wanted_ to say, _imagined_ he'd say if he ever saw John Winchester again seems pointless now.

Old Yeller saw to _that_.

"You have a part to play in all this, and so does Sam. The folks upstairs want you to lead, son."

Dean closes his eyes. For a moment he's back in Hell, sulfur in the air, burning red rocks all around.

…_lead us, child, lead us…_

After a while Dean realizes that John finally stops talking.

"Do you…am I the only one who realizes how fucked up this is? I'm damaged goods, Dad." Dean shakes his head in disbelief. "Why didn't they pick _you _for this?"

John smiles a little. "They already have. This isn't _my_ group. It's yours if you want it. Free will. That's what this is all about. You can _choose_, Dean."

"Geez, you guys must be worse off than I thought."

"Sam's got your back, dude. You _know_ he does. You're not alone in this, son. You never were."

"Huh." Dean stares off into the distance, his head slightly cocked to one side. "Is Mom around?"

"Here? No."

"But you've seen her?" Dean's tone is curiously flat.

John nods.

"Missouri said that Mom destroyed herself saving us…."

"She did. She came back. Nothing's written in stone, Dean."

"So, let me get this straight. God wants me to lead this group of…of angels in the coming war."

"You got it."

"When did they decide _that_, Dad? Was it _before_ or _after_ I went to hell?"

"I don't know what to tell you about that." John shrugs. "Don't know the timeline. All I know is that you need to know you've got options."

Dean's skin fairly tingles with all the attention he's getting, from John and the angels above, so to distract himself he stares down at the lush green grass next to his work boots. He doesn't look up.

_Stop staring at me._

He wants to scream it out, but he can't. He won't.

_I can't do this. I'm all fucked up._

"You saw what I looked like before. With..." Dean gestures with one hand. "With those damn wings and the eyes and all."

"Yeah. I saw you."

_How the hell can you stay so friggin' calm, Dad?_

"_Yellow_ eyes, Dad." Dean says each word slowly, carefully, as if John really doesn't understand what he saw. "Back in the day..._way_ _way_ back in the day...I was that yellow eyed bastard's son."

"I know."

"You..._you know_? The bastard killed Mom. He did a pretty damn good job screwing up Sam's head with all those damn visions. He took you down to hell for a year..."

No good, this is no good. Dean can hear the heat rising in his voice and John just stands there. "I'm the bastard's son. I'm the reason our family was targeted by the son-of-a-bitch in the first place. That doesn't _bother_ you? That doesn't that piss you off?"

"What do you want me to _say_, Dean?" John pulls his hands out of his pockets as he finally steps forward, and Dean sees a familiar glint in his eyes. John's pissed. "What do you want me to do? You want me to tell you that I hate you for it? You want me to tell you that you're _not_ my son?"

_Yeah. Yeah, I do. Dad, please..._

John shakes his head. "Can't do that. I won't. I'd make the deal for you all over again if I had to. Look, this metaphysical stuff irritates the crap out of me sometimes, and I've been dealing with it a lot longer than you have. I'm not gonna lie to you, Dean. I'm not gonna tell you what you think you wanna hear. I don't have all the answers. What those bastards did to you down there only works if you let them get away with it. You're better than you _think_ you are, Dean. You are. If you think you're trapped, then you are."

Dean feels the ground underneath his feet fade out. His connection to this place loosens. It's a sideways motion that tugs at him, and Dean understands. Time to go back. Sam's still back there, caught up in that whole ungodly mess, and it's time to go back.

In his mind's eye Dean sees gleaming yellow eyes. _Go on out there, son, and make me proud._

"It's your choice," John says with a hint of sadness in his voice. Dean can't see John anymore, but he can hear him clearly enough. "_Your _decision. I trust you, son. I do. You gotta believe that. God believes in you, kiddo._** I**_ believe in you. Even if you don't believe in yourself."

Darkness rises up all around him, and Dean actually welcomes it this time.

_**000**_

Yeah, I know. I just muddied the waters even further. You gonna let me know what you think, or what?


	11. Flight Risk

A/N: And now the Author is going to have a Sally Field moment: "You like me! You REALLY like me!"

Okay, I'm all right now.

Disclaimer: Don't own Dean or Sam.

Now on with the weirdness and mayhem…

_**Chapter 11 – Flight Risk**_

_**000 **_

_Is there a problem, dear one? _the Fixer whispers softly inside Dark's head._ Do you need any help?_

_Hell no, _Dark snaps irritably. His skin feels too tight stretched over his skin. He knew she'd look in on him sooner or later; he was hoping for _later_. Being restrained by that binding medallion is playing hell with his image, and it's taking longer than he thought it would to cancel out the damned thing.

She won't help him. He knows that. If he says "Yes, help me" that's _it_. Put a fork in him, he's _done_. Dead and gone. It's survival of the fittest, and he knows she hates weakness. As it is, he figures he has another couple of minutes or so. She'll wait that long at least to see if he can neutralize the damn thing on his own. She taught him a trick or two while he shared her home and her bed, taught him dark magic, countermeasures to practically any and every known thing hunters use topside. If he's too damn stupid to get himself out of this mess, she has no further use for him.

_We fooled the Ursi Taku._ The Fixer's voice is deceptively calm. _Made them think we served them, instead of Azazel's group. I didn't go to all that trouble pulling you out of Dean Winchester just so you could go topside and get yourself ensnared like this. I assume being bound to that human is part of some plan of yours?_

_Stand back and watch me work, sweetheart. _He knows it's disrespectful, but he's less than two minutes away from being a sack of dead meat with wings, and right now Dark just doesn't give a damn.

_**000**_

notCreedie's eyes turn from black back to normal brown as he mounts the steps to Kubrick's RV. This is going to be _so_ damned_ easy_. The others are coming up soon. Meatsuits everywhere, all walking around in the sunlight just waiting to be snatched up, and pretty soon even the sunlight won't matter. It's really going to be ironic, using _hunters_, using _Kubrick_, the Jesus Guy of _all _people, to get to those damn Winchester brats.

Behind Creedie the young blonde woman at the gas pumps stands there blinking in the sunlight, confused. The last thing she remembers is getting out of her Jeep on the parking lot of the supermarket down the road. About an hour ago a little black eyed boy walked up to her as she unloaded her cart into the Jeep, and she doesn't remember much after that.

notCreedie steps inside the RV, scrapes his feet on the mat just inside the door, just like Creedie would. Kubrick's funny about stuff like that, and the demon's glad it could force Creedie to reveal that much at least. It won't take much to fool Kubrick, but the dude _is_ a hunter after all.

Of course, as soon as the door clicks shut behind it, the demon immediately senses there's a problem, a_ big_ one, because once it steps on the mat, it can't step off. It curses fluently to itself in ancient Sumerian and somewhere deep inside his skin, Creedie laughs like hell.

Kubrick's smile is tight and unpleasant as he slides out from behind the wheel and walks back. "Well, well. How you doin' today, black eyes? Had a feeling one of you suckers was gonna show up." He nods towards the floor mat. "Got a devil's trap underneath the mat, you dumb bastard."

notCreedie's hands twitch with the urge to throttle the human. Creedie's brown eyes turn night black; no sense in keeping up the charade any longer. "None of this will do you any good," the demon hisses, and Kubrick laughs.

"Some things you gotta remember about me. You don't mess with my Jesus, and you don't mess with my friends, either. Gonna have to purify the air in here after I've done with you, but," Kubrick shrugs, "that's the cost of doin' business, I guess."

He turns towards the table and picks up a black leather bound notebook. "Got a few questions to ask you, and you're gonna tell me _everything_ I want to know. I figure you're here for the Winchester kid."

The demon falls silent, and Kubrick takes that as a _yes_. He flips the book open to the prayer of Saint Augustus the Just. It's a handy little prayer that has the added side effect of forcing any and all demonic entities present to tell the truth before it vanquishes them completely.

Good a place to start as any.

**000**

Bela stops the useless business of trying to fight as she feels herself pushed deeper inside her skin. She's never been possessed before, but she's been around enough possessed humans to get a pretty good idea of what to expect. Even so, nothing could prepare her for the feeling of helplessness as Gordon pushes his way past her skin, sinks deep inside her and pushes her up against a small cramped corner of her own mind.

She watches as Gordon removes most of the containment amulets from around Dark's neck and shoulders. Gordon leaves the last one, the binding medallion, in place against Dark's chest, and even though she doesn't have a mouth anymore (she doesn't, does she?) Bela smiles at the outraged look on Dark's face. He's not a happy camper, not at all, and that does give her some satisfaction. Boy's too cocky by half, and he clearly needs to be taken down a peg or two.

Dark sits there in a daze, and Bela can see his lips move. Curse words, probably. It was amazing all the obscenities that came out of that beautifully formed mouth.

Gordon leaves Dark sitting in the chair as he/she moves around the apartment. He uses Bela's lighter, slimmer body with the same heavy handed grace he used his own meatsuit when he had one. He goes around the room, checks to see what could be useful to him, what's not.

She bristles when he lays her hands on her talking board.

That Cylcerian statue on the mantleplace?

Fertility goddess. Useless.

Those rune stones over in the cabinet there? Used for scrying. Gordon's got Dark, and Dark's under his thumb. Dark can sense where Dean is, so Gordon doesn't need the stones.

He makes her go to the walk in closet and open the door. That crystal charm hanging down from the light pull catches Gordon's eye and as soon as he reaches up and touches it Bela nearly howls in triumph.

_Got you. _

The muscles in her entire body tremble as she scrambles her way back up into her skin. She closes her fingers around the crystal, ignores the way its sharp edges dig into her palm.

Gordon curses as he sinks down deeper inside her.

_Stupid twit._ It's a reversal charm. She doesn't have long. Gordon's so damned strong, she'll need help to overcome him. Her muscles twitch almost uncontrollably as he churns and boils underneath her skin, confused, angry.

Bela clears her throat, even as Gordon tries to steal her voice. She's finally able to force out the words: "You…come here."

Dark's too sluggish, too slow. She can't turn around to see, it's all she can do to hold onto the charm and her voice, but she hears him get up from the chair slowly. She strains to hold Gordon down, seems like days before she can finally sense Dark standing right behind her.

She tries again. Not much time. Not much at all.

"You…help…me…"

Dark leans forward and whispers to her, and _that's_ when Bela feels real fear.

"No. I won't." There's a smile in his voice, and Dark doesn't even try to hide it. He turns her around to face him, and her eyes widen in shock when she notices that the binding amulet is no longer hanging around his neck.

Dark grins at her, wicked bright and cheerful. He puts one hand around Bela's neck and idly runs his thumb up and down the ridge of her throat. "Y'know something?" and his voice is a slow lazy drawl, oddly warm and almost friendly. "I can see right through you."

Bela stiffens as her skin prickles all over, from head to toe. She can't move, but Gordon can't either. Dark smirks as he grabs her right wrist and holds it in front of her eyes. When Dark touches her again that prickling, tingling sensation becomes stronger.

Bela screams.

She stands there, frozen in place, as her skin melts away. At least, that's what she _thinks_ is happening at first. Her skin color fades away and her skin _burns_, and she's sure that the bastard is making it hurt on purpose.

Bela sees the long bones of her arms, the bones of her fingers underneath her rapidly thinning skin and she understands. A part of her is coldly, clinically watching and observing, even though the rest of her feels like screaming. She can't make a sound anymore. Gordon twists a smoky tendril around her vocal cords and all she can make is a muffled, choked off moan.

Her skin is transparent. She can see Gordon inside her, black smoke twisting and coiling around her muscles and tendons. That burning sensation sweeps down to her toes, and she knows without looking that she's become see-through all over. She still has her hair, and her eyes, but changing that one simple thing like her skin changes _everything_. She's a freak now, unable to hide, something that at one time she would have cheerfully sold to the highest bidder.

Gordon laughs inside her head.

"We havin' fun _yet_, sweetheart?" Dark purrs smoothly. "No? Too bad."

He lets go of her hand. Bela drops to the floor on her hands and knees, claws at the hardwood floor, staring at the bones of her fingers, the black smoke coiling lazily beneath her crystal clear skin.

Inside Dark's head the Fixer sighs, a low breathy sound of approval.

_Oh ye of little faith…_

Dark frowns as he expands his senses to the grounds outside the cottage.

Something's not right.

He hears movement all around him, sees humans in black body armor swarming all around the place. They move with military precision and that one detail makes the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up.

Dark's technically John Winchester's son too, after all, and he remembers the hours Dean spent in the library researching military equipment and weapons. This is some kind of SWAT team. The equipment and gear is state of the art government issue.

Maybe they don't know exactly _who_ or _what _they're dealing with. He could stick around, have some fun with them. Dark nearly laughs when he sees the guns, weird looking assault rifles with bell shaped muzzles but it's not so damned funny when he realizes that they're packing special ammo. Hollow projectiles packed with nets. Electrified, fortified nets. The men in black body armor move around the grounds silently setting up grounding wards strong enough to knock him out of the sky, keep him from getting airborne.

They've already laid salt around the edges of the property. The only way out is _up_.

He doesn't have time to even wonder how they knew that would work on him without a countermeasure in place. He doesn't want to waste time doing that, either.

He feels uneasy. It's time to go.

His wings unfurl in an instant.

The cottage is only one story high, and Dark leaps up at the ceiling from a standing start. He gives an added mental push with his mind and the roof above him collapses like wet cardboard. Blue open sky above, but between him and the sky they've already laid down some sort of silver spiderweb.

_...caught...not again…not again…_

Bones snap and break as Dark lunges forward. Momentum carries him halfway through, but the web stretches with him part of the way. He's caught around the waist, but his wings are somehow completely free, and they scoop up air around and beneath him in a mad scramble forward.

He hears the chatter over their com system --

…_primary target sighted…_

…_close the nets damn it, close the nets…_

_-- _scratchy human voices filled with excitement and anger. Dark lunges forward as his wings beat powerfully. He claws for open sky, and as he jerks clear of the spiderweb everything around him goes stark blinding white.

_**000**_

Adin tilts his head to one side. It's the same gesture Sam's seen Dean do all his life, but this time it seems _alien_. Too smooth, too otherworldly.

He's finally processed everything he's seen, put it all together. It's one of his strengths, what he's good at.

Sam gets it. He _understands_. He called _Adin_ out, and Dean went away.

_When I'm around you, I remember what I am. Who I am…_

_Adin,_ Sam thinks to himself. _He's connected with Azazel somehow. This is my fault. Oh my God…no..._

Dean's short dark blond hair lengthens, becomes shoulder-length, sandy blond. More of Dean goes away now, as Adin comes out even further.

"No." Sam says out loud. "Dean."

Adin smiles and shakes his head. He's bare-chested now, his wings unfolding majestically behind him. The rooftop scene, the burning corpse of the city of Chicago shimmers in the background and fades away. They're back at Bobby's now. Bobby's still out of it, sprawled on the floor just where Sam saw him last. Sam can hear the older hunter's raspy, labored breathing.

Adin's deep, smooth voice echoes inside Sam's head. _Let me help you understand._

Adin moves with preternatural quickness, has Sam by the left wrist before the younger man can even react. Sam's knees thump heavily against the floor, and he looks up, wonders how he got in that position. Adin's golden yellow eyes bore into him, sweep everything away.

Sam's ears fill with the heavy roar of ocean waves inside his head, but it's different somehow. He feels smaller. Safe, protected.

_You were inside her womb,_ Adin whispers, _and she hadn't even named you yet. They killed you both, and I couldn't stop it. I tried. I tried to save you both, but I couldn't. The humans took my family away. Heaven took my father away, took everyone I ever loved away, and I want to see them all burn for it. _

_**000**_

It starts small.

No blood red rain falling from the sky. Not _yet_, anyway. The rain of frogs would come later, of course. A spectacle like that is always good for catching mankind's attention, but like all huge things the end of the world as we know it started small.

Cracks appear in the ground, and no one notices.

No one notices the long coils of inky black smoke that curve into the bright open air up frm the ground. The few meatsuits that do notice are quickly overtaken as the smoke flows into their mouths and noses. Their eyes glow pitch black at first, then back to normal and they smile cheerfully as they go about their business. They're careful not to attract attention.

It starts small.

**000**

**TBC **


	12. Tabula Rasa

_**Chapter 12 - Tabula Rasa**_

_**Now: **_Sam and Adin have a sharing and caring moment. Tabula Rasa means Blank Slate.

_**Disclaimer: **_Don't own any of 'em, darn it.

* * *

_He's taller than I am, _Adin thinks to himself as he watches Sam. _I'm the older brother. I should be the tall one. _

He's had to get used to thinking, used to _being_ in a physical body again. Thoughts like _that_ don't really matter. It will be nice to have a family again. Someone else who has wings with feathers, someone he can fly with. Someone who looks back at him with those same golden eyes. To be reunited with a lost loved one was something Adin never thought would ever happen. It was the reason he allowed God's Great Flood to take him in the first place.

Sam kneels there, his eyes glazed over and unseeing, his head filled with the sounds of the tides inside mother Amaris' womb.

Adin's features soften and his golden eyes lighten considerably. His hands shake, just a little, and a tremor runs through those impressive blue speckled wings of his. His guard's down now, and that's something he would have never done in front of Sam Winchester.

But _Adin's _younger brother, his beautiful, lost, not so little brother, is a different story altogether. The boy was unborn when he died. Unborn and unnamed. He's lost his way, but he's _still_ Nephilim. That's what he _was_, what he will be again. Time is turning in their favor, and all Adin has to do is bring his brother back, out in the open for all the world to see.

Adin still remembers the old language. Names have power, and if he knew his brother's Nephilim name, the name their mother, Amaris, intended to gift him with, everything would fall into place.

Everything _won't._ Adin knows that. Nothing's ever_ that_ easy.

But _this_ way, when Sam wakes up, he won't be _Sam_ any more. Adin will name him, guide him, teach him _who_ and _what_ he is, protect him until he can get his bearings, because that's what big brothers _do_. That's what families do for each other.

Azazel's faction of demons are the only thing Adin has left that's close to family, and they're not blood kin. They're _not_ Nephilim. The Dark one is, but that's by default. He was pulled out of the eldest by Tia Maleficum, and even though Dark plays a role in the great plan, Adin's never cared much for him, and he doesn't know why.

Adin glances at the old human male lying unconscious on the floor nearby. There's a name to that face, and he pauses a moment while he tries to remember it.

_Singer. Bobby…Singer._

He's a hunter. The place reeks of herbs and amulets, dusty books and special metals. Bastard put grounding and protection wards all around this place, but those wards only worked on the other one. That…_Dean, _and that was only because Dean _wanted_ to be grounded, so he could stay with Sam. Adin puts his mind to it, and all the wards fade away. He's cleared the way for the others. They'll be here soon.

Adin casts one more backward glance at Sam. There's nothing else to do but wait until his brother comes back, and until then Adin doesn't know what to do with himself. Even when he was little he was _always_ restless, unable to sit still in one place for very long. He walks through the hunter's house, takes in everything with those golden eyes of his. He recognizes some of the amulets, knows that some of the seemingly harmless beads and trinkets have power behind them. And some of them are just that, _harmless_.

He's drawn to a pair of bright blue beads that are the same blue color of the sky Adin remembers as a boy. He flew almost as soon as he could walk, and something tight inside him always eased slightly whenever he took to the sky.

Adin braids a small section of his hair and slips the beads onto the end of the braid. He knots the end of the braid loosely so that the beads stay in place. It's just like the good times way back when. He didn't go into much adornment back then. Not like the others. Just a bead here and there, that cowrie shell he found one time. Just enough.

He likes the color of the beads. That's enough. It brings back memories.

Adin remembers.

He remembers being little, sitting at Azazel's feet, watching his father as he interacted with the humans. Azazel taught them things Heaven didn't want them to know, and Adin couldn't understand that. He was happy. Everyone else seemed to be happy. Why wasn't that enough?

He remembers the bright smile on his mother's face. She was always happy to see him, no matter what. She was human, but she loved him. There was no doubt of that. From the moment he was born, even with those then-weak little blue wings pressed against his back, he never felt rejected by her. Never.

He remembers laughing the first time he and Azazel engaged in mock battle. Adin was young and cocky then, thought he knew it all, and somehow the old man effortlessly blocked all the punches he threw at him and then proceeded to knock him flat on his ass.

He remembers the dark crazed look in Azazel's eyes the day Heaven declared war on them all. _You betrayed me, boy. Sided with Heaven against your own flesh and blood. _

He hadn't, of course. Those days were filled with confusion and hatred, which was just what Heaven wanted.

Sam takes a deep hitching breath, and for a moment Adin forgets to breathe.

It's time. Time for _his _brother to come back. Adin feels strong and weak all at once. He forces himself to stand still, despite the twitching of his wing and his shoulder muscles, and he waits.

He wants to stand there. He wants to go out into the yard, unfurl his wings and lift himself up into that bright afternoon sky. He wants to go, and he wants to stay. He doesn't acknowledge that tight feeling in his chest and gut, can't even put a name to it, but Dean Winchester would know exactly what that feeling is. Adin's terrified and anxious, hopeful and resigned, all at once.

Sam's eyes open, and Adin just stands there, helplessly.

_No._

Sam's eyes are still _hazel_. Not golden. _Human_, not Nephilim.

_Please, no…_

No wings. _Nothing._

No hint of recognition in those damned hazel eyes.

It's wrong, all wrong. He's still Sam Winchester, and Adin knows it.

_That's all there is inside him._ _There's nothing else…_

_**000**_

Sam opens his eyes and the first thing he sees is Adin. Golden-eyed, long sandy blond hair, and of course, those gloriously improbable blue wings of his.

John Winchester trained his boys to observe everything. It's hard-wired into Sam's very being, same as Dean's. _Watch and observe every detail,_ Dad said on more than one occasion. _Use everything you learn._

Sam takes one look at Adin and knows_ something's_ changed in a major way.

Dean's eyes were oftentimes the most expressive part of him, even when he tried to hide it. Sam could see flashes of pain in those wide green eyes, even when Dean tried to man up, tried to tough his way through any and everything, when Dean was tired, or sick, or hurting. Sam could always tell when Dean's guard was down, when he was vulnerable. Sam had seen that look often enough.

He sees that look right now, in Adin's golden eyes.

_Whatever he tried to do to me didn't work. _

"I don't know what you want from me," Sam says hesitantly. He stops trying to fight against the unseen pressure holding him.

Adin blinks. "Your brother in this life…this…this _Dean_. There's nothing left of him inside. This body is mine now." It's Dean's voice, deep, smooth, but with a slight accent Sam can't identify. Speech pattern's different. It's stiffer, more formal.

"You think I should be like you, don't you? The eyes, the wings. Even if I am what you say I am, I don't remember any of it. I don't remember _you_." Sam sees Adin stiffen slightly, and Sam knows he's just hit a weak spot.

_He hates being alone,_ Sam thinks to himself. _Just like Dean. He can't be alone…_

"Your brother is gone." Adin snarls. His fine features go curiously blank for a moment, and then there it is, that same mulish look Dean would get sometimes, that supremely stubborn look Dean would get when he'd decided on one course of action and God help anyone who tried to change his mind.

Only Sam was pretty sure that God didn't have anything to do with_ this_.

_Dean's my brother,_ Sam thinks to himself._ He's irritating, opinionated, bossy, rude and downright crude at times,_ _and I want him back, no matter what._ _He's still in there somewhere. He has to be. _

"Then you show me," Sam grates out. "You show me that there's nothing left of Dean inside you. You show me he's gone, _really_ gone for good. Because if you _don't_ show me, I'll fight you. _I'll fight you every step of the way._"

Adin's eye color deepens to dark gold. "You don't get to bargain with me. I will force you…"

"If Dean's gone like you say, what could it hurt? If you could show me he's _really_ gone, I'd know then to stop fighting you."

Adin gets very still, very quiet. Sam pauses for a beat, then: "We could start over. Learn how to be brothers again."

Adin glances away, down at the floor. "You're just…trying to confuse me…"

"No, I'm not. You can show me, can't you? Show me that Dean's really gone forever."

"So be it," Adin whispers, and Sam's head rocks back as something pierces the space between his eyes. Everything glows golden yellow around Sam as the world falls away from around him.

* * *

I realize it's been a few weeks since I last updated this story, and I apologize for that. I'd appreciate it if you'd review this chapter and let me know what you think.

Next update? Tomorrow. We go inside the thoroughly messed up mind of a certain green-eyed hunter.


	13. TwistedWrongAndCrazy

_**Chapter 13 -**__** TwistedWrongAndCrazy**_

_**Now: **_An inside look into the thoroughly messed up mind of a recently deceased green-eyed hunter.

* * *

He can't remember things so good anymore. He tries hard to get it right but he gets confused. One of the voices in his head keeps saying this word over and over again. The voice sounds happy and sad, all at the same time.

_Dean._

He doesn't know if this Dean is a _what_ or a _who_.

When he thinks about himself, the only word that comes to mind_ isn't_ a good one (_…freak…'m a freak_). He knows what he_ isn't_. He wouldn't know what normal is if it walked up and bit him on the ass.

The ocean surf crashes and roars inside his head, and _that's_ damn insane, 'cause he's nowhere near water. He lifts his grey hood up over his head and puts his hands over his ears. He grabs his head so tightly it makes his brain ache. He's got a slow leak, and he can't stop everything inside his head from seeping out.

Daddy holds him tight as they sit outside on that big black car. There's smoke in the cold air and Daddy's so sad but his eyes aren't yellow and that's all right, _no yellow,_ _please, no more of that_. He sees yellow hair and pale white bleeding skin and her sad wide eyes on him -- _I'm sorry, baby, I'm so sorry_ -- as he looks up at her and he's so small, so weak.

He couldn't get into the house, but he found a quiet dark corner on the porch, just big enough for him to squeeze into. He sits hunched over with his back jammed into the corner, right behind that wooden porch swing.

_If I stay here and 'm quiet no one will see me, _he thinks to himself. _They won't know I'm here and they'll leave me alone._

People pass by on the street all the time. He thinks it would be bad if they saw him, so he keeps quiet and sits with his chin against his knees. He won't look at their faces. He doesn't want to see their eyes.

Yellow eyes would be _bad_. The color yellow makes him nervous. Best not to see _that _ever again in life.

This might be the same house he grew up in but he's not sure. The stone underneath his bare feet is cool and hard. He doesn't know what he did with his shoes, or even if he ever had any. His blue jeans are faded, worn out at the knees and shabby, just like he is. It's warm and sunny right now, but he doesn't take that dark grey hoodie off. Last time he did that the weather changed in less than five seconds, from warm and bright to dark, cloudy and cold, and he very nearly froze his ass off.

_If you don't like the weather here, _one of the voices chirps cheerfully,_ just wait five minutes, and it'll change._

He doesn't know where _here _is, exactly, but he's not about to take any chances, so he leaves the hoodie on, and he watches and waits.

The sidewalk shifts and changes. Trees on one side of the street melt away and re-appear everywhere else, even on rooftops. You'd think he'd be used to all _that_ by now, 'cause he's crazy, and he knows it for a fact.

People come out of the house all the time, but they walk right by like they don't even see him. Everyone leaves him, over and over again. He did something _bad_, right? Or he_ is_ something bad, _twistedwrongandcrazy _for that many people to decide that any place but around him is a better place to be.

A dark-haired man and a blonde woman come and go several times. The woman has a kind face, but sometimes she smells like smoke and fear, sadness, regret and loss.

_Angels are watching over you…_

He hears that over and over again, faint whispers inside his head.

Sometimes the dark-haired man smiles at him. Sometimes the man yells at him.

_Take your brother outside as fast as you can…_

There's blood and more fire, the smell of gunpowder in the air and salt everywhere.

_You're not dying on me. You're not._

He hears screeching and growling and he doesn't know if he's the one making that noise or not.

_Stay with me, son, breathe, that's an order…_

He breathes in and out, deeply. He does as he's told, and he stays put.

A tall kid comes out of the house with a duffel bag on his broad shoulders. He's _really_ tall, with shaggy dark hair and _really_ long legs. His hazel eyes flash angrily; he's mad as hell and he clearly ain't takin' it anymore. He's glad to be getting out of this place and away from this life.

_Don't ever come back_, the house rumbles angrily in a Dad voice.

_Don't worry I won't_ the kid snaps, and he never even looks back as he leaves.

When that shaggy haired kid walks by the freak's face gets wet and his eyes feel funny.

_I'm right here. Please… _

_You want to be Dad's brainwashed little toy soldier for the rest of your life? Fine._

…_please don't leave me…_

The kid leaves, like they all do.

He can't remember his own name. How can he even expect people to stay around him, when he can't even remember his own name? He stares at his hands, and his fingers shake. He's just as weak and wobbly on the outside as he is on the inside. There used to be something bright and shiny on his right hand and a leather cord and a brass something around his neck -- _I want you to have this. Not Dad -- _but he can't remember what they were.

_You want to trade your gutter soul, is that it? _

Dogs bark and howl in the distance, and it's not a good sound. His chest tightens up, and he has trouble catching his breath.

_Her eyes are blood red and her mouth tastes like blood and bitter ashes. _

_One year. That's all._

God, he's cold all of a sudden. He shivers and shakes and he's suddenly glad he didn't take the hoodie off.

_Hullo, sweetness. I've been waiting for you._

_Warm breezes flow over his naked skin. He stands there in that one spot because she told him to. _

…_the horde has spoken…_

…_other generations, old yellow eyes said…_

_You be good now. _

_Thunder clouds rumble all around him. _

His shoulders hurt, like something is trying to push its way up out from underneath his skin. Blue speckled feathers come to mind, and he's not sure why. Feathers and wings are for birds, and he's pretty sure he's not a bird, but he's not one hundred percent sure.

Well, he's ninety per cent sure.

_You're such a failure…a magnificient failure…_

Trying to keep all that stuff inside his skull makes his head hurt really bad. He jams himself even further into that corner, and he closes his eyes, hunches over, nearly groans out loud.

He doesn't even notice when that dark shadow with the wide grin falls over him and pushes the porch swing aside.

"Love what you've done with the place, kid," the yellow eyed man says cheerfully.

_Yellow. Oh, please, no…_"Guh…go…away…"

All the spit in his mouth dries up as his heart hammers against his ribcage. Yellow. He can't look at yellow. _He can't_.

"Still here, huh? Thought you'd be all gone by now." The yellow eyed man kneels in front of him, and the freak very nearly yelps out loud. It's too close, he can feel the heat from those yellow eyes on his skin and he wants to be gone from this place, anywhere but _here_, _anywhere_…

"_Nuh_…no…please…leave me alone…"

Fingers stroke the side of his face, slowly, almost lovingly, and he startles like a frightened foal. The only sound he can make is a scared whimper, like…like a _girl_, for cripes' sake, but he can't help it. The color yellow freezes him in place. He can't raise his arms to fight, can't get away, so he closes his eyes. Maybe if he can't _see_ yellow, it'll go away.

It'll _all _go away…

"I don't know what you want from me. I don't--"

"Adin," the yellow-eyed man says soothingly, and a part of him quiets down, tries to lean into the touch, but that's not _right_, it's _not_…

"That's not his name," a voice says loudly, firmly, and the freak startles because it's _not _his voice. But he's heard _that_ voice before.

He cracks open one eye, stares past the yellow eyed man's right shoulder.

The tall shaggy haired kid came back.

He's not mad anymore. He leans up against that big black car at the curb. It's a classic, black as night and shiny. Perfect, as always. His perfect girl.

_She's all yours, son._

_Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole._

_Don't listen to him, baby. He doesn't understand you the way I do. _

The kid sees him looking and smiles. "Hey, Dean."

"D-Dean?"

The yellow eyed man growls, deep in his throat.

"Yeah. That's your name. You're my big brother. Thought I'd lost you for good, man."

"Don't listen to_ him_," Old Yeller snarls. _"He's_ nothing. _You're_ nothing."

"Dude," the kid says calmly, "You know who I am, don't you?"

"Sam," Dean breathes softly. It's the sweetest sound Sam's heard in a while. "Sammy."

"That's right." Sam smiles, bright and wide. Names have power. He knew _that_ all along.

"Much as I hate to break up this warm and fuzzy moment," Azazel snaps, "Me and your no-account brother have business elsewhere." He hooks an arm around Dean's neck and drags him to his feet, slams him down onto the porch swing.

"You stay put now," Azazel whispers to Dean.

"Dean's still here, after all you tried to do to him. My brother's still here, you yellow-eyed son-of-a-bitch."

"Language, Sammy, language. Adin let you in here, am I right?" Azazel sighs as he turns towards the younger brother. "I swear, if I want something done, I have to do it myself. That boy can't do _anything_ right."

He crosses the distance between him and Sam in less than a heartbeat, too quickly for Sam to even react. Azazel laughs as he grips Sam by the throat. One quick twist of Azazel's wrist, and Sam's neck will break like dry kindling.

"They say if your spirit dies outside your body you die for real, sport." Azazel whispers in the shell of Sam's right ear. "It's nothing personal, y'understand. We're on a timetable here."

Azazel tightens his grip on Sam's neck, and out of the corner of his eye the Demon sees something slashing through the air at him. At first his mind refuses to make the connection.

It's wings. Feathered wings, shades of blue, sharp edged and perfect. Just before he's yanked away from Sam, knocked off his feet and sent flying Azazel wonders how Adin could ever have betrayed him again.

_**000**_

Next update? Monday. Gordon and Bela work each other's last nerves, and Dark has a bone to pick with the good folks at Searchlight.


	14. Laugh? I Nearly Died

_**Chapter 14 – Laugh? I Nearly Died**_

First A/N: Over one hundred reviews! Thank you all! WHEEEEE! Yeah, I'm a day late with this, but I got distracted. Most excellent computer at home. Home internet.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Second A/N: Chapter title taken from the Rolling Stones song. There's nothing really humorous about this chapter, but the title really fit.

Disclaimer: If you recognize them, then I don't own 'em. They belong to Kripke.

Now let the carnage commence…

_**000**_

She always knew she was black and rotting inside that pretty skin of hers. Hadn't Daddy always told her so? Wasn't that _why_ he did those all nasty things to her?

It actually _is_ pretty damn funny. Bela can't stop laughing, even as the men in black body armor cuff her hands behind her back.

Gordon just wishes she'd shut the hell up.

He can't force his way out, not even through Bela's mouth. Dark's sealed it somehow, and Gordon's not surprised, not one damn bit. He actually kind of admires Dark for it. Kid knew what he had to do, and he took care of business. If Dark's Dean's potential unleashed, Gordon doesn't have any problem with _that_.

He liked Dean. Liked him from the moment he first laid eyes on the kid. Gordon could tell Dean was a natural born hunter, and it didn't take much to figure out that Sam was the problem. Always had been. If it hadn't been for Sam Dean Winchester could have been the scariest mo fo on the planet, scarier even than John Winchester.

What Gordon's having a problem with now is Bela. All that laughing is working his last nerve, making it damn near impossible for him to think. He can tell from the look of the men all around them that he's pretty well screwed. They're military. Professionals. They have a job to do, and they do it, efficiently and effectively, even though they're obviously pretty freaked out by the way Bela looks. Only thing Gordon can do now is to make himself comfortable and wait.

Wait for them to slip up, make a mistake.

_Then_ he'll make his move.

Bela gurgles as Gordon wraps himself around her windpipe a little tighter. He doesn't want to kill her, not _yet_, anyway. The idea of being trapped inside a rotting dead meat suit just doesn't appeal to him, never did, else he would have killed Bela outright when he took her. He's damned, he's not stupid.

Bela finally stops laughing, and Gordon settles down underneath her breastbone.

That's better.

_**000**_

Dark slides in and out of consciousness as his wings beat slowly, in deep powerful strokes, scooping up air all around him. Pushing his way through that spider web damn near turned him inside out. All his ribs on the right side of his body are broken, and the sharp splintered bits poke out of his bruised skin like porcupine quills. He's bleeding now, and that's something he makes _others_ do. _He's_ the one who smashes things, not the other way around.

His ribs knit back together, push their way slowly back underneath his skin. The holes in his wing leather knit back together slowly, and as the hole closes up his wings beat a little more steadily. He's neatly hidden away in high cloud cover, out of the range of those damn black helicopters. He literally wraps the cloud around him, becomes one with it. It's an automatic response, hiding like that. They can't pick him up from his body heat. Sensor waves from ground units and satellites overhead bounce through the cloud cover and none of it touches Dark.

Well, none of it except for one thing. He hears the same name over and over again.

_Gabriel._

…_ground units dispatched…_

_Gabriel…possible sighting… _

It's _Gabriel_ this and _Gabriel_ that.

_Huh. _Gabriel's_ here,_ Dark thinks groggily to himself. _Dude decided to join the party._

He's always wanted to whip Gabriel's punk ass. Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and the rest of those archangel pansies, prancing around with their flaming swords and silver and gold armor like they own the damn place. Dark doesn't realize that what he's feeling comes from Adin's _and_ Dean's resentment about their families.

_Angels watching over you, my ass._

And then too, Dark just likes to fight.

Dark's fully healed by the time his green eyes flicker open. The pain's just a memory, but it's something he can use. He's got places to go and more people to kill, but he's got time, more than enough time to go down there and swat a few of those black suits, teach them not to disrespect their betters.

"Wait'll they get a load of me," Dark growls to himself like his man Jack Nicholson, and he laughs. Always did appreciate a damn good joke.

Voices crackle through the air. There's a flurry of activity below, and Dark snickers to himself as he hears that name again.

_... planned aerial sweep to locate and acquire case designate Gabriel..._

Until it suddenly dawns on him. _Gabriel. Gabriel._

_He's_ Gabriel. _Him._

Suddenly Dark isn't that amused anymore. It stops being funny when it starts being you.

His green eyes spark black fire as his blood rises, and he just doesn't give a damn anymore, about staying hidden, or the timetable, or anything else. The air around Dark churns and boils in a superheated frenzy of rage and anger. His wings expand to their full length as he sends a massive shockwave through the air around and below him, just as a black Searchlight helicopter passes underneath the cloud cover directly below him.

The pilot, Captain Daniel Nicholson out of Knoxville Tennessee, is good, one of the best, but the electrical system shorts out completely. The craft breaks up when the vibration hits. Nicholson can't control anything, there's nothing left to steer, and he's alive during freefall until he and the debris crash directly onto the roof of Bela's cottage below.

To his credit, Nicholson doesn't scream. Not even once.

_**000**_

The Demon Azazel laughs. He spits out the blood and dirt in his mouth, and he laughs.

S' funny, when you really think about it. He was feared in heaven, hell and earth, and now he's a shadow of his former self, a figment of somebody else's imagination. All that's left of him in the world is a bewitched bone fragment hidden inside the body of Dean Winchester, the eldest son of John Winchester.

Azazel's pretty sure that where ever he is, ol' John-boy might be laughing, but then again, maybe not. Papa John wasn't exactly known for his sense of humor, especially when it came to Azazel and his boys.

Azazel spits again as that hand clamps down hard on the back of his neck. He's grabbed by the neck like some mongrel pup and then slammed face first back down into the concrete.

"Hello, freak."

Azazel spits out blood again. The brat's in control for now. He wants to see Azazel bleed, so Azazel bleeds. "That's the pot calling the kettle black, huh, Deano?"

"That head trip of yours doesn't work on me anymore."

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure about that. You're damaged goods, Deanie, ol' boy." Dean's grip on his neck tightens and Azazel laughs again, his grin red and bleeding because of the blood pouring from his broken nose.

"Don't think for a moment that just because Sam weaseled his way in here that things are going to be all right. The Winchester brothers are finally reunited after all this time, and all's right with the world. Cue the happy, triumphant music, 'cause Sammy Winchester's here to fill in the gaps in his train wreck of an older brother. Please." Azazel rolls his eyes. "Spare me that happy happy crap. The two of you aren't going to ride off into the sunset. You don't get a happy ending in this one, boy."

"Maybe not, asshole." Dean slams him face first into the pavement again. "But you don't get one, either." The thunk of the Demon's skull bouncing off the concrete is pretty satisfying. Azazel does a pretty good imitation of a bobblehead doll gone wrong.

And the bastard won't stop laughing.

The hair on the back of Dean's neck stands straight up. His body reacts before his mind does. He gets to his feet and backs up, blinking, even as Azazel lurches up on his hands and knees.

"I still have some juice in me, y'know." The Demon raises his right hand, curls his fingers into a claw shape. Yellow energy crackles into the air around his fingertips. He slams his palm down onto the ground, digs his fingers into the concrete.

The ground turns yellow around Azazel's fingers. Yellow and transparent, thick yellow glass.

"You can't get rid of me, Dean. Like it or not, and you don't, I'll always be a part of you. Now, you could do the honorable thing and kill yourself, but hey, suicides go to hell, so you're mine either way this thing plays out. And you can't do anything to yourself while little Sammy is in here with us. We're one big happy family now, isn't that nice?"

_**000**_

Ronnie Ford's the resident psychic on this particular assignment, and most of the agents owe their lives to him as he warns them to get the hell out of the way before Nicholson's chopper crashes. Ronnie feels a tingle at the back of his skull (_spider sense_, he once laughingly referred to it) and he sounds the alarm inside each agent's head. As good as the field ops teams are, they're still human, and it's every man and woman for themselves as Bela's cottage goes up in a ball of fire, aviation fuel and debris.

The teams of agents inside who were securing the building are reduced to blackened, charred ashes in minutes.

Tom Ames', Ronnie's driver, doesn't think twice. He floors it and they speed away from the cottage just in time. It's all mass confusion, explosions and carnage everywhere. The trees around the cottage catch fire, torches swaying in the wind.

Something slams into the ground a few feet away in front of the car. At first Ames thinks it's debris from the downed copter, but that can't be right. He sees brown leather wings curved protectively over… something. At first Ames can't tell what it is.

A shiver ripples through the wings, and they unfurl, slowly. Whatever this is stands up, slowly, carefully. Ames sees well muscled shoulders, worn blue jeans and spiky dark blond hair, and a smartass smirk like the devil himself had come upstairs to visit.

Wide green eyes settle like a gunsight on Ames and Ronnie in the car. The winged man starts walking.

_Towards them._

_Case designate Archangel Gabriel_, Ronnie thinks. All the spit in Ronnie's mouth dries up as he remembers the video archives on this thing, remembers how Gabriel smiled as he juggled the heads of those farmers he _-- it --_ decapitated. No sooner does Ronnie think the name _Gabriel_, the case designate starts frowning. "Gabriel" growls, deep in his throat, and he moves so fast he's a blur.

The driver's side door is ripped off its hinges, and Ames is jerked out of the car so fast he doesn't even have time to draw his pistol. The passenger door right next to Ronnie is ripped off its hinges.

Ronnie yelps as a well-muscled arm thrusts itself into the interior of the car and fists him by the front of his shirt. He's jerked out and lifted up into the air. He looks over Gabriel's shoulder and sees the lower half of Ames' body. Ames is planted into the ground like some crazy unnatural flower, his head and shoulders beneath the earth, his legs broken and twisted, bent into all these unnatural angles in the air like a kid's discarded toy.

Ronnie looks down, and those wide green eyes go pitch black.

"Gabriel?" Dark frowns. _"Gabriel?_ Out of _all_ the codenames you could've picked for me, and you had to pick that wuss,_ Gabriel?"_

Oh, shit._ "I – I don't… I didn't pick that name --"_

"Course _you_ didn't."Dark snaps irritably. "I'm using the collective 'you', but don't think that lets _you_ personally off the hook, dumbass. None of the other names were available? _Asmodeus__? Satan? Lucifer?_" Dark shakes his head in disbelief. "_Gabriel._ _Son of a bitch."_

Time to play some hackey sack with this one's head. Dark's hands tighten around Ronnie's neck. One quick twist ought to do it.

_Wait. This one will do, _the Fixer says quietly, and Dark cocks his head to one side as he listens to her.

_What?_

_He's a psychic, dear heart. And I need a body when I come topside. This one will do nicely. _

Dark frowns._ See, I don't like that._

_Don't like what?_

_He's a dude. You're female. Let me go get you another body. _Dark leers. _A female body._

Tia Maleficum laughs shortly. _Where? The rest of these are unsuitable. Are you questioning me, young one?_

Dark knows that tone, knows how far he can push his luck. He's essential to the plan, all right, but the Fixer is flexible. She can always use Adin, that Nephilim fuck. The Fixer can change the plan to cover Dark's absence, and they both know it.

Dark purses his lips. _Okay. Well, I was just sayin'. _

_This one will do_, the Fixer says firmly.

_All right. Fine._ Dark takes a firm hold around Ronnie's waist and shoulders. He goes airborne from a standing start straight up into the sky, before the other Searchlight agents have a chance to regroup.

**000**

Bela's skin burns to a crisp, and Gordon surges out in a roiling column of dense black smoke. There's no reason to hang around, and he'd rather get as far away from the black suits as he can.

Gordon flows across the ground in a surge of coiling black smoke. One of the surviving black suits sees him and actually takes aim at him with that peculiar looking assault rifle of his, but at the last minute Gordon zigs instead of zagging and a flaming landing wheel from the copter bounces out of the flames and nails the black suit, killing him instantly.

_Well, ain't that ironic._ If he had a mouth and lungs to breathe, Gordon would be laughing his ass off.

_**000**_

_Air, oh God,_ it hurts to breathe again. It's good, but it's not, and right now Sam's on his knees, his eyes half closed, taking in great whoops of air that set his lungs on fire. He doesn't know how he can breathe in a place like this, wherever here is, doesn't even know if it actually is air he's breathing. He knows two things right now: one, he was just a twist of Azazel's wrist away from eternity, but the second thing totally eclipses the first.

_Dean's here. He found Dean. _

The rough raspy sound of his own lungs going in and out and his heart (way too damn fast) fills his head like thunder. His neck still feels funny, all achy and sprung somehow. His eyes water and he can't get them to focus right. Memory's fuzzy, images all jumbled together, but Sam remembers something else that lets him know the shit's hit the fan.

Blue feathers.

Adin.

Gotta get the hell up then, quick and fast, get Dean, get to a safe place, if there is such a thing as safe around here. _Worry about that later, just get up,_ Sam rages to himself, _get the hell up _and he tries and he stumbles, nearly face-plants into the pavement, before he can get up on his feet.

Dean's already up, on his feet, and he startles a little as Sam touches him on the shoulder. Not the smartest move, touching Dean from behind, but right now they've got to shag ass out of here. No time to be subtle, even though Sam knows Dean could very likely turn around and start swinging on him.

Dean doesn't. Dude's…distracted. Sam wants to hug him and smack him all at the same time. Dean's staring straight ahead, and Sam follows his line of sight. Sam's eyes get just as wide as Dean's are.

"Dean, come on, we gotta get the hell outta here."

"No shit, Sherlock. Tell me, Poindexter, what was your first clue?"

They both back up, away from the Demon, towards the stairs.

"Adin's around here somewhere, too."

Azazel gets to his feet. He laughs as the ground around him turns into an ever-expanding circle of thick yellow glass.

"Who? What?"

"The winged dude."

"Oh, him. Yeah." Dean's right hand comes up, fists the front of Sam's jacket. He gives Sam a push backward, and Sam stares at him, confused. "What?"

"Sam, come on, we gotta go. _Now_. Get inside the house."

"What?"

"_Damn it, don't make me repeat myself. Move your ass. Now!_" Dean growls. It's his command voice. Sam's never ignored _that_, and he never will.

Dean backs up, puts himself between Sam and Azazel. For the first few steps Dean pushes and shoves Sam forward. They run up the stairs and Sam feels this energy building in the air behind his back. It's electrical. It prickles his skin, rustles through his hair and clothes. Maybe it's his imagination but he could swear that it's trying to pull him backwards. He can't move fast enough, and he forces himself to. He's found Dean again, and he's not giving him up, ever.

Dean slams the door shut as soon as they stumble inside. He stands there with his back against the door, breathing heavily, gloriously alive and whole and in one fucking perfect piece. They're in a fucked up situation, _as usual_, and they might not make it out alive, _so what the fuck else is new?_

It's the little details that stand out, but even then they don't really matter. Dean's barefoot, but he's wearing his usual worn faded jeans with holes in the knees. He's got on this dark grey hoodie instead of his usual overshirt, t shirt and leather jacket, but that's_ okay_. Dean is still Dean, and Sam's fine with that.

Sam stands there with his back against that wooden table at the far wall. His knees are shaky and he feels all crunchy inside and crazy around the edges. He's got a grin on his face, and it's a little crazed and kinda goofy but he can't help it and he sure in the hell is not gonna apologize for it.

Dean scowls at him. "What're you grinnin' about?"

Sam can't stop grinning.

"Well, don't get _too_ happy. You're stuck in here with me, genius."

"Yeah, well…" Sam's voice trails off. He doesn't want to lose this good crazy feeling he's got. Dean's back, and he's here. Somehow sitting here in silence seems to be the wrong thing to do, too. "So. Is…is this our old house back in Lawrence?"

Dean shrugs as he looks around. "Could be. I dunno. I got…I got a lot of gaps inside my head, Sam." Dean steps away from the door. He leans over, looks out the window, and when he turns back to face Sam Dean's face is curiously blank. "Don't expect too much from me. Don't get your hopes up, okay?"

It might be gay or girly, but Sam says it anyway, and for once he doesn't regret a damn thing as the words come quietly out of his mouth: "I'll be your rock, Dean. You can anchor yourself to me, and I'll remember things for you. I'm not goin' anywhere."

Dean stops and stares blankly at him. "You are such a damn girl, you know that?"

"Yeah. Guess I am." And there's that slight smile again.

"Now what?" Dean growls.

"Well, hrm, no wings, you know." Sam gestures weakly.

"Uh, yeah. About that," Dean sighs. He takes a deep breath and he stares at the floor. "Uh…out there. When Ol' Yeller had his hands on you...that _wasn't_ that Adin dude. That was…me."

Dean stands there, and from behind Dean's back Sam sees a massive blue speckled wingtip emerge slowly, almost shyly. Those oddly beautiful wings slowly unfold from behind Dean's back, and one corner of Dean's mouth twitches upwards, like he's about to go through something really unpleasant.

Dean doesn't look at Sam. _Won't_ look at him. It's almost as though Dean's holding his breath, waiting for Sam's reaction. Sam can hear Dean now: _I know this isn't what you signed up for. Dude, I'm sorry. Wouldn't blame ya if you bailed on me, right the hell NOW. _

There's only one thing Sam can think to do. It's crazy, and not exactly PC, but right now Sam doesn't give a damn.

He laughs.

_**000**_

_**Next update should be posted Saturday. Well, okay, sooner if I can get some of this real life stuff out of the way before then. **_


	15. Splinter In His Mind's Eye

A/N - I just went through the worst case of writer's block I have ever had in my entire life. The writer's block is broken, thank God, and my muse is gorging herself on Hershey's Hugs and crab legs (don't ask). I apologize to everyone for the delay in updating.

Disclaimer: Don't own any of 'em, except for Adin. _Maybe. _

_**Chapter 15 - Splinter In His Mind's Eye**_

_**000**_

_Kids nowadays,_ Azazel sighs to himself. _I'll have to take a firmer hand in these matters. _

Dean had somehow managed to hang on. Azazel felt the boy's irritating presence inside the headspace, and it had taken him a while to track the brat down. Kid was stubborn and willful, no doubt about it. No surprise there. Azazel had expected more from Adin, but here again, compared to Meg and Azazel's other children, Adin was a relative innocent in the ways of the world. It wasn't that great a shock that Sam Winchester was able to trick Adin so easily.

Azazel always prided himself on being able to improvise, to switch plans, to anticipate. Push come to shove, if Adin proved to be useless, he could take Adin's body and complete the plan with his legions, the Fixer, and Dark. They could still put on a show. The greatest show the earth had ever seen. And the last.

Everything around Azazel, even the air itself, crystallizes into that thick yellow glass. He stands there and watches the front door of the house slam shut behind the brothers.

Wasn't it ironic, though, that Dean was the one who shot and killed Azazel's son with the Colt? Another irony: Dean was the one who orchestrated the exorcism that sent Meg raging back down to hell a couple of years ago.

Heaven was laughing, and Azazel was pretty sure that he wasn't in on the joke.

_**000**_

Kubrick barely misses sideswiping this little old lady who's just gotten out of a Toyota Camry, but Granny doesn't seem to notice. She doesn't even flinch as the massive bumper of the RV misses her by inches, and she turns her face up and stares up at the storm clouds in the sky.

Her eyes are pitch black.

"Are you seein' this?" Creedie whispers roughly, wide eyed. His voice shakes a little, and his throat is still sore from all that cussing the demon that took him did during the exorcism. God, he feels slimy. He could use a hot bath in some holy water right now but they just don't have the damn time for_ that_.

Kubrick's hands grip the RV's steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turn white. His eyes are narrowed almost to slits. "We ain't stopping. We can't. Not until we get back there and see about those boys."

_An hour ago the demon inside Creedie laughed. "You're doin' all this for that winged freak? He's ours, hunter. Bought and paid for. We've got two of 'em up here, one light, one dark, and now it's time for our two fallen angels to get to work. See, you humans see better than you can think, and when you meatsuits see Winchester, all regal and angelic and shit, you're gonna think that he's here to save you, but he's not…"_

They're twenty miles down the road from Singer Salvage Yard, but the highway's crowded with people and vehicles. Kubrick doesn't know where all these people came from. They're all here now, and they've gotten out of their cars and tour buses and they're just standing around now, out in the open. Black eyes everywhere, and they're staring up at that cloudy sky. Waiting.

They don't pay Kubrick and Creedie any attention, but Kubrick doesn't think it has anything to do with the protection runes concealed underneath the RV's paint job. A mile down the road the path he's following closes up and Kubrick drives along the shoulder instead.

_**000**_

Dark's pissed off and trying hard not to show it. His shoulder blades twitch as his wings open up slightly. He can't stand still for long in one place; he wants to move, but he can't right now. Ronnie Ford's in his arms still alive but unconscious. Dark's sorely tempted to drop Ford and head up into the clouds, but the thing that stops him is the idea of that bastard Adin being in the center spotlight of the Last Great Show on Earth. Whoever coined the phrase "hell hath no fury" surely had Tia Maleficum in mind. Dark can piss her off up to a certain point, but he knows exactly how far to push it. He's evil, he's not stupid.

So Dark stands there and manages to look supremely pissed and bored at the same time as he holds this insignificant meatsuit up just so The Fixer can slide into him and her new host is a dude instead of a chick and _damnit it just isn't fair_ and he knows she did it just to be contrary. Which isn't anything really new for what goes on between him and her, but he's still pissed off anyway.

The demons in the earth underneath his feet moan, screech, and groan as the ground shakes. Geez, you'd think they'd never been topside before. Dark knows most of them probably haven't been, not in a long while, but hey, that's what they get for being so damn weak in the first place.

Ronnie reminds him of Mark Harmon, that dude on NCIS. Dark always gave Dean a little mental push to watch the show, and besides, they both had a secret crush on that little Goth chick, Abby. Dude probably had about ten years to go before he retired from Searchlight. Somehow Dark doesn't think that Ol' Ron will ever have to worry about collecting a penny of his government retirement money. Dark is also willing to bet that before long Ronnie's gonna wish that Dark_ had_ ripped his head off, that is if the Fixer leaves enough of Ronnie alive after she gets through with him.

Dark rolls his eyes as the ground cracks open at his feet. Tia Maleficium rises up into the darkening afternoon sky as a coiling pillar of dense black smoke. She settles down on the human's face and Ronnie breathes her in. He blinks and Ronnie's bright blue eyes sparkle with reddish-orange highlights.

Dark is stubbornly unimpressed. Tia smirks at him and tries not to laugh.

He lets go of Ronnie's collar as soon as she settles underneath Ronnie's skin, and that annoys him even more. He never really thought about it before, but even down in hell Dark would be considered pretty vanilla. The Fixer's the only one who's ever touched him, and he made sure it stayed that way, not that some of the others didn't try. He might be one of hell's bitches, but you gotta draw the line somewhere.

"Come here, sweet boy," Tia says with Ronnie's mouth. "Show me that you missed me."

_She_ might be in charge, but_ he's_ still pissed. It's the little acts of rebellion that make life worth living.

Dark makes her wait for it.

_**000**_

Adin shivers as he runs his hands over his bare arms. Goosebumps raise up on his naked freckled flesh, and it startles him for a moment. He's still not used to this body. He may never get the chance.

He presses his back against the wall, brings his knees up to his chest as he folds his wings forward, covers his upper body with them. The feathers are soft against his skin, the color just as blue and speckled as always, outrageously beautiful, but it doesn't comfort him and he doesn't feel any warmer.

Sam tricked him. Used his fear of being alone against him.

Adin feels lightheaded and unwell and he feels/hears Azazel's anger inside his head. It's a little louder than background noise, faint but getting louder every second, claws dragged across a blackboard, digging into his brain. The room around him blurs into a soft grey blur. He can't see but he knows that the old hunter lies sprawled out on the floor nearby, and Sam Winchester sits unconscious against the far wall.

It's even worse when Father's voice becomes _very very_ quiet.

_Adin ?_

He doesn't trust himself to answer.

_I decided to reward you for your part in all this, so I gave you Sam Winchester. Family's everything, isn't it, son? All I asked you in return was simple. Look after your brother. Guide him back to our family. Remind him who and what he is. Did I misjudge you, Adin? Was that too difficult a task for you? _

He's got no excuse. No excuse at all. Adin steels himself for whatever pain Azazel plans to put him through. It never occurs to him to beg or plead.

Azazel nods to himself. The child is salvageable then. He just needs to learn a lesson.

_Maybe I expected too much from you, too soon. I'm going to help you with this. After all, that's what families do for each other. _

The cold spreads through Adin, turns his nerve endings to solid yellow glass. He spirals down into darkness as his muscles lock into place, and his last thought for a while is that maybe Father will let him keep his wings.

_**000**_

Sam laughs, and Dean's response is immediate.

"You're a funny guy," Dean snarks. Character's name was Henry Hill. Played by Ray Liotta in Goodfellas.

And damned if Sam doesn't laugh again.

_Never did laugh at my jokes before,_ Dean thinks. He knows that if Sam wasn't around he wouldn't have a clue. Friggin' pitiful that he can't even remember things on his own.

"Dean," Sam says softly. "It'll be all right." God help him, Dean feels a flash of instant irritation. Sam looks so open and earnest and hopeful. If they get out of this alive, he'll be a burden on Sam for the rest of Sam's life, and what the hell kind of life would _that_ be?

"I'm standing here with these useless blue wings, Sam. And I'm wearing a hoodie. A damn hoodie," Dean grates out. His voice is rougher, harsher than he meant it to be, but he can't help it. "Now you wanna tell me how this is gonna turn out all right?"

Dean scowls a little as Sam gets up and walks towards him. Looking into Sam's eyes he knows exactly what kind of a moment they're having right now.

_Chick flick._

_Aw crap. _Dean tries to backpedal, but he's got nowhere to go. Funny thing is (funny-ironic, not funny ha ha) now that he's got wings, he _still _can't get away from the damned things. Can't back up or away, and his wings extend themselves up and behind him as Sam wraps those too long arms around him, pulls him in and hugs him hard. It's like getting a bear hug from a big ol' emo grizzly. Or a Sasquatch.

Ordinarily Dean couldn't get away fast enough. He'd make an inappropriate joke or comment just to see that pained "I only put up with you 'cause we're related" look on Sam's face. Anything to break it off, stop the momentum of the damn thing. Let Sam think he was a cowboy, an ass, anything else but some emo chick.

Sam tightens his grip a little and Dean's eyes bulge out. That tingling sensation buzzes along his nerve endings. Dean wants to pull away. He doesn't want to pull away. He's not going to admit that he needs this as much as Sam does.

They're gonna have to shag ass in a couple of minutes. Ol' Yeller's outside, and Dean doesn't have to look outside the window again to know that yellow ice or glass or whatever the damn demon is creating is already creeping up the sidewalk. They'll have to leave before it gets around to the back of the house.

Dean raises his arm slowly, hugs Sam back. Dean counts down from _ten_ as his skin prickles from all the images he's getting from Sam, seeing the two of them as kids--

_You gotta eat something, Sam. Here's the last of that peanut butter. Go on, eat it._

_Dad didn't forget. He'll be here._

-- and by the time Dean gets to _four _it's almost too much, painful almost. He leans into Sam's touch, and just stands there.

_Aw, isn't that sweet?_

That voice inside his head…_it's not his voice._

Not Sam's either.

Dean freezes in place.

_That's my boy. _Azazel crows. _Don't wanna burden little brother with this, now do we?_

_Get the fuck out of my head --_

_Now is that any way to talk to me like that? We're roomies now, kiddo. Best pals. And just so you know, Dean, I'll be seeing you boys soon. Real soon. Not many places inside this fractured skull of yours to hide in, is there? Better enjoy Sam's company while you can. His expiration date's coming up in a bit._

_You touch Sam and I'll fucking kill you, y'hear me?_

_Kill me? With what? You don't have the Colt. And let's face it, salt and holy water? Please. Something like that doesn't work on something like me. Just wanted to give you some food for thought. Here's one for the road, Deano. Did you ever wonder why you needed all that protection, Dean? Even Sam realized that as a kid. He gave you that amulet Bobby Singer wanted him to give your father, remember? Six months ago Sam insisted that the two of you get those anti-possession tattoos. The elephant hair bracelets? That skull bracelet you wore? You had all that, and dear Mary even told you that angels were watching over you when you were a kid, too. And none of it worked. You do realize that, don't you? Don't you want to know why it didn't work?"_

_Tired of this,_ Dean thinks to himself. _Tired of you, tired of being fucked over. 'm tired of it._

Something red and fierce rises up inside him, and he welcomes it. _Enough. Enough is fucking enough…_

_**GETTHEHELLOUTOF MY HEADGETOUT--**_

He can almost hear the next words Azazel tries to speak, then it's all gone, swept away as Azazel is pushed out of his head, tossed back outside like so much garbage. Dean can feel the Demon's surprise, then outright anger, murky yellow and boiling.

_Son of a bitch._ Dean smirks, just a little. Something loosens inside his chest. Just a little. He feels edgy and loose and full of energy that he hadn't even _felt_ a moment before. Bastard demon's been pushing them all this time. Dean gets it. He wasn't supposed to be able to _do_ that.

Now Dean can push back.

_We're roomies now, kiddo. Best pals._

Demons lie. Dean knows that. Demons also talk too damn much, when they should just shut the hell up and get down to business. Influencing what goes on in this place goes both ways, then.

Outside Azazel staggers backwards. His body flickers as he catches himself. His eyes blaze as he stares at the house, and the air around him churns with dark yellow energy. He's pissed. His anger sounds like screaming, and it's getting louder by the second.

Sam startles at the noise. Dean tightens his grip around his not so little brother's waist and shoulders.

"Dean? What -- what are you doing?"

"Dude, we gotta go. _Now_."

Dean glances up at the ceiling. Sam misses the way Dean's wings unfold behind them. He's too busy looking up.

The ceiling above their heads dissolves into specks of wood and concrete that float lazily in the air all around them. Sam can see what passes for the sky above them in this place. The wild blue yonder. The Big Blue.

Sam's not even aware of it, but his mouth drops open. Light pours in through the hole, a shaft of bright golden light that warms Sam's skin, makes Dean's green eyes almost glow.

"Dean? H-how did you--?" The air around them stirs, slowly, gently. Dean's feathers rustle, a gentle breeze cards the hair at the back of Sam's neck. Sam feels lighter somehow, so light that if he moved he would probably float right off the floor. That sensation freaks him out, so he freezes in place, wills himself to get heavier.

None of that works.

Flying in a_ plane_, yeah, that's _different_. He's not afraid of _that_. But this…this is _Dean. Dean's the one who's afraid of flying, not me. This is Dean with wings, damn it, hot dog, lead foot Dean, and it's not the same as flying in a plane, it just isn't…_

"You trust me?" Dean says drily.

"T-trust you?" _This is not good, not good at all…_

"Yeah. Do you?" Dean tilts his head slightly to one side. _Pressure wave's coming in first. Wait for the edge. Wait for it…_

"Uh, Dean, that's -- that's usually _not_ a good thing, any time somebody asks do -- do you trust them," Sam stammers. He glances up nervously at the sky and Dean's grin gets even wider. His shoulders twitch slightly as his wings fold in, just a little.

Sam looks. _Gotta be able to clear the hole_, he thinks. His eyes widen in panic. _Oh. SHIT. _

"What? You don't wanna go flying with your big brother, is that it?" Sam doesn't like that gleam in Dean's eye. "You're not afraid of flying, are you, Sammy? I fly just as good as I drive."

Sam's pissyface comes back in a second. "Dean, you drive like a bat out of hell."

The yellow glass coating the sidewalk outside shatters into a million shards and then melts back together again, thicker than before. The pressure wave builds, crumbles stone and concrete, and the wooden swing on the front porch splinters into kindling. The yellow energy wave is still seconds behind.

Dean's eardrums contract as the unseen edge of the pressure wave reaches him.

"Yeah, and I fly like one too. Let's go!"

Dean's wings pump downward in one powerful stroke. Dean and Sam leap upwards in an instant, just as the wall behind them collapses inward with a hissing, shrieking sound. The house melts into globules of yellow, brown and black slag beneath their feet, all around them.

As soon as they hit open sky Dean's wings spread completely open. Another wingbeat and less than a second later they're one hundred feet above the house and still climbing.

Dean's humming "The Superman March" but Sam can't hear him.

Sam's screaming like a little girl.

_**000**_

Next chapter? Wednesday.


	16. Prelude

_**Unaware: 16 – **__**Prelude **_

A/N: I have nothing against Brandon Routh, the new Superman. I like him and his portrayal of Supes very much. I just think it's more likely that growing up Dean would have seen Christopher Reeve's Superman first.

Disclaimer: I don't own them, Eric does. There now, ya happy?

**000**

_Pain is a useful teacher, Adin,_ Azazel whispers inside the boy's head. Adin doesn't even flinch as two of his right ribs snap. Physical pain is a new sensation for him. It leaves him dazed, light headed. He hopes this is the worst of it, but he also knows that's a vain hope. Azazel has a knack for zeroing in on weak points, and with family he's no different.

_You'll remember this, my beautiful boy. You'll remember what I tell you from now on. It's not your fault. I sheltered you too much, more than the others, but I can teach you all you need to know. First I want you to know what it's like to be earthbound. You need to appreciate what you have. You love your wings, don't you?_

The long bone in Adin's left wing shatters. The pain's bright white and fills the entire world.

Adin knows better not to beg. Or scream.

**000**

_It's a smorgasbord out here,_ Gordon thinks. Meatsuits all around, all different shapes, ages and sizes. He could get used to this. He doesn't know where they all came from, didn't really think there were that many people in South Dakota, but here they are, standing around cars, trucks and buses, all clustered on this highway.

He coils low along the ground, snakes around a few parked cars, and finally slithers right up the side of this tour bus. All the humans around are black eyed, and they don't even take notice. Gordon settles on the roof of the bus as he takes it all in. He could hang around here, of course, grab a warm body, do some wet work, try to make up for the fact that Dark got away. He knows that thundercloud thing that approached him down in hell probably isn't going to be that forgiving anyway.

"_Dean Winchester is bought and paid for. We want him back. All of him."_

Forgiving? Nope, not likely. Not likely at all.

Even in smoke form Gordon can see that reddish tint among the clouds in the sky above. He knows what it is. It's the windup to the Great Show, and right then and there he decides that there's no point in going back down if Hell is coming topside. He's not going _up_, that's for sure.

That whole business with Sam and Dean piqued Gordon's interest though, which is _not_ a good thing. He'd like to see Sam again. He'd like to continue the conversation he was having with that hellbound freak when Kubrick and Creedie walked in.

He'd like to see Kubrick again. Make the Jesus Guy scream a little (_well, no, a lot_) for shooting him and sending him down to hell in the first place. Then send him there and see how _he_ likes it.

Gordon wants to look Dean up. Just to say hi. Compare notes with the kid, see how he felt about accommodations downstairs. He really wants to ask Dean if Sam was worth all that pain and hellish torment. Gordon heard the rumors about Dean's deal, and what Dark said made Gordon even more curious.

'_m the best part. Don't really need the rest._

Well, then. Time to renew some old acquaintances, then. Gordon lifts off from the roof of the tour bus. All the humans here are already _occupado_, and besides, as far as he can tell, none of them have the kind of equipment that he needs. He can sense other humans about a mile away, and they meet all his qualifications: they're not possessed, and they have really big guns.

**000**

_Damn those idiots on tv. Got the damn forecast wrong again._ Carl Blakeley stares up at the sky and frowns when he sees those dark clouds gathering. He'll have to cut his chores short now, leave mending those fences be and head on in earlier than he wanted to, and while ordinarily he just wouldn't give a damn, this means that he'll have to do some work on his day off. Hell, he'd planned on going into town and getting drunk for most of the day. If a man can't kill off a few brain cells with Jack, John or Jose on his well deserved damn day off, what's the sense of working, huh?

_Wish I could get a job like that._ Blakeley cusses under his breath as he loads his tools back into his truck. The wind picks up and viciously whips at his jacket and his collar. _Make six damn figures a year and if I'm wrong, oh well, what the hell. Bet they get to bang the weathergirl too. Damn._

Going in early meant that old man Peterson was going to find something else for him to do. One of the reasons Carl liked his job so much was the very fact that he didn't have to be around his boss so much. Now, from the look of those dark clouds, it was going to rain all damn day and half the night. Shit.

The wind rises up again, and shakes the truck and rattles the tools in the truck bed, and that's when Carl decides it's time to stop bitching and head on in. He goes over and yanks the driver's side door open and what he sees in front of the truck startles him so much he just stands there and stares.

That open field beyond the fencing is bleeding smoke, thick black smoke that coils up from the ground. The ground is cracked, huge jagged tears in the earth, all the way to the horizon, and streaks of yellow lightning leap from the ground to the sky.

The sky is cloudy, and the clouds have a reddish tint to them. Like dried blood.

The hair at the back of Carl's neck stands straight up as all the streamers of smoke form into one giant black man-shaped cloud. Carl can't wrap his mind around this, not even when hundreds of pairs of electric blue eyes in the clouds open up and look directly at him. Carl stands there, open-mouthed, staring, and he dies that way.

The thundercloud thing rumbles and laughs as it brings one massive fist down on Blakeley and his truck. The crater's about ten feet deep, and when it lifts its hand up there's not much left of Detroit steel or human flesh.

It's the first time in a millennium that the Ursi Taku have walked the earth again, and humans are just as easy to kill as they were the first time around. Blakeley's the first, but he won't be the last.

The legions gathering on the highway half a mile away turn in its direction in silent adoration. It's a good start. The Ursi Taku senses Azazel's masses gathering to the west, with Dark and the Fixer in their midst. Hundreds of electric blue eyes in the cloudskin spark with anger.

Traitorous bitch. They all remember how smooth the Fixer was. _I am here to serve you always_, she told them. When she pulled the Dark out of Winchester without killing that Nephilim scum they were all mightily impressed, and when she suggested that Winchester be allowed to live afterwards no one really questioned her. She was in service to them, and no one doubted her.

Thunder rumbles, lightning pulses inside that dark swirling smoke. It doesn't matter. None of it does, not anymore.

The Ursi Taku horde controls the highway, and the highway leads right to Dean Winchester. All that matters now is collecting that wayward fallen angel, and the war can begin.

_**000**_

Sam wasn't about to admit it out loud, but the landing was damn near perfect. Dean's wings beat slowly, almost lanquidly as they floated down to the rooftop, light as a feather.

Sam tried not to squirm. He tried to play it off. and so far he was damn lousy at it. Hell yeah, he did stuff like this every day, went joyriding in the sky with his gung-ho, recently deceased older brother, who just happened to come back from Hell or Where Ever with a pair of blue speckled wings with speed and maneuverability that could outfly _everything_, man-made or avian. This fool could fly. Damn, he could fly.

It wasn't right. None of this was. Sam had more frequent flier miles than Dean and Dad combined, probably. Sam wasn't the one who was afraid of flying. Dean was.

Well, he had been.

_He's got wings, and I don't._ It was a small difference, and a huge one.

Of course, Sam was also surprised that barrel roll maneuver of Dean's over the downtown area hadn't emptied his stomach out. Good thing spirit bodies don't hurl, apparently. It only feels like they do.

When they were halfway through the roll, upside down, Dean whooped and hollered, wild and joyful. Ass was thoroughly enjoying himself, and that slightly green tinge to Sam's skin probably made the experience all the sweeter.

At least Dean didn't start humming "Can You Read My Mind," the romantic theme for the Lois/ Superman flyby in the first Superman movie. Sam would have slugged him in the face if he had, and taken his chances if he'd slipped out of Dean's arms and fell to the ground.

Sam knew he was kidding himself. Dean was quite the mover and shaker, and he could probably catch Sam in mid-air without much effort.

Now that they were landing Sam was pretty sure that Dean was showing off. _Again._ His suspicions were confirmed when the corners of Dean's mouth turned up in a smirk and Dean raised his right arm up skyward, his hand balled into a fist.

They were still twenty feet up in the air. Sam's eyes bulged slightly as he tightened his grip around Dean's shoulders. Dean's smirk got a little deeper.

"Easy, miss, I've got you." It was his best Christopher Reeve as Superman imitation.

Sam scowled. "Jerk."

"Bitch," Dean purred.

A few more feet downward, and Sam's knees wobble. As the soles of his feet touch good old terra firma his stomach lurches, slow and greasy, a pretty good imitation of that barrel roll maneuver from a few moments before. Dean lets go of him then and Sam thinks about falling down and lip-locking the gravel underneath their feet. He decides not to. He's already given Dean way too much ammunition.

Dean's eyes are bright, and it's the happiest Sam has ever seen him look in a while. His wings arch up and out behind him; they're regal, majestic. _It suits him,_ Sam thinks to himself. Never thought he'd ever put the words _majestic, glorious _and _Dean_ in the same sentence, but there it is. He flies like a bat out of hell, all right, the same way he drives, but when he drives the Impala Dean has the moves and reflexes of a professional stunt driver. When he flies? Dean's _phenomenal_, and that isn't even the right word.

When he flies, Dean is _terrifying_. He has preternatural smoothness and quickness. Those wings of his respond to his every move with power and grace. Sam's seen hawks gliding in flight, making aerial moves in pursuit of prey and they were downright clumsy compared to Dean. And this was the same dude who sat in that seat on the plane next to him, when they went after that phantom traveler. Then Dean was stiff and wide-eyed, nervous, jerking and twitching at every bump, every thump, every noise on the plane.

Sam frowns as he rubs his hand across the back of his neck. Nothing but nervous tension all through his back and shoulders. "Why were you afraid of flying before? I mean...you know…"

Sam's one of the few people Dean's ever let in, even Sam has his limits so Sam doesn't really expect an answer. Even so, Sam's surprised when Dean stares down at his bare feet and answers in a small quiet voice: " 'cause I…'cause I wasn't in control. I couldn't feel it, you know?"

That blinding grin of Dean's comes out in full force. "This is different. Man, I could go up again right now. I feel the need for speed, baby!"

_Thought so._ Sam rolls his eyes. "Dude, you're switching genres now. First _Superman_, now _Top Gun_."

"Why not? I'm Maverick. You can be Iceman. Unless you wanna be Lois Lane." Dean frowns up, cocks his head slightly. "You don't, do ya, Sam?"

"Dean," Sam says warningly.

Dean huffs. "Okay." He peers at Sam's chin, purses his lips, then taps the side of his own chin with his forefinger. "Got a little bit of smoosch there…_Lois_."

Sam glares at him as he hurriedly wipes the drool off his face with the back of his hand. "Smoosch?"

Well, _that_ was a little _too_ gay. Dean shrugs. "Okay. I'm about done running this into the ground anyway."

"Okay, genius, what's next?" Sam drawls.

As soon as Sam says it Dean's face gets That Look. It's a look that Sam knows all too well, and he hates it. It's the prelude to the "You've got to let me go" speech.

He hates that too.

Dean's features smooth out into a carefully blank mask. "It's not safe here, Sam. I gotta get you outta here, back to the real world."

Sam shakes his head rapidly. _No. Hell No._ Feels like he's swelling up inside, all red and angry and _dammit, not again._ "We're not having this conversation again, Dean." Sam hears the snarl in his own voice. He doesn't try to hide it, doesn't bother to soften his tone.

Dean stands there and blinks at Sam. He opens his mouth and Sam doesn't even wait for the rest of it. "I'm not leaving you alone in this fight." Sam sticks his chin out, and there it is, in all its glory, the Sam Winchester bitchface. "I'm not leaving. That's it. End of discussion."

Dean's mouth hangs open then he closes his mouth with a snap. "We go back out, we go together." Sam finishes up sharply. "We go down, we go together."

"Okay," Dean says, a little sheepishly, and those wonderfully speckled wings actually droop a little. For a moment, despite the stubble, Dean looks even younger than Sam.

_He's taking this too well_, Sam thinks to himself, and he knows he hasn't heard the end of it.

_**000**_

They don't stay in one place very long. They can't.

They go for the high places, the rooftops and the skyscrapers. The Demon's around, they know he is, but he won't show himself. Not yet, anyway. That yellow glass coats half of everything like a winter ice storm, and somehow Sam and Dean know instinctively that touching it or letting it touch them is _not _a good thing. Whatever it touches is like a fly encased in amber. That's one experience both boys want to avoid, thank you very damn much. They can hear Azazel screaming, a high-pitched, reedy sound in the background. Bastard's still pissed that they got away.

They've still got room to maneuver, but not for long. Dean's headspace is huge. It stretches to the horizon and beyond, but it's still limited space. Sooner or later they'll have to turn and fight Yellow Eyes, and Sam knows that Dean doesn't want to do _that_, not an all-out battle, not while Sam's around.

Time doesn't mean much in this place, and the sun never sets. Sam wonders about that. As much time as Dean's spent in the darkness, in graveyards and alleyways, in the woods and other lonely deserted places where God only knows what is going on, you'd think Dean's headspace would have a night sky and a full moon overhead, instead of that bright yellow fake sun.

The landscape is a crazy quilt of Dean's memory. Parts of this place look like Chicago. Sam recognizes streets in Palo Alto. Parts of the Stanford campus are there too, and it must have been the parts Dean visited when he was checking up on Sam. Seems like a lifetime ago, something that belongs to another person's life.

Sam tries not to think about that.

It's downtown Chicago mixed in with St. Louis, blended with parts of nearly every place Dean's ever been. There's the Gateway Arch in the distance. Otherwise normal looking city neighborhoods mixed in with downtown areas, a city block of residential houses in the shadows of skyscrapers. Niagara Falls is half a mile away.

Even after all these years, Niagara Falls still gives Sam the creeps.

Years ago John had driven the boys to upstate New York, right across from the Canadian border. It was a fairly simple gig, a noisy poltergeist, and John was back in the hotel room before morning, sleeping in a fairly comfortable bed for once.

Dean was fifteen, Sam was eleven, and in the morning Dean quietly slipped out of the motel room. Sam followed him, and he soon realized that was a big mistake on his part.

Sam got a few feet from the door and stopped dead in his tracks as thick white fog swirled all around him. It's just fog, just mist. He knew that. It hung down to the ground, heavy, thick as pea soup. All that blankness scared the hell out of him, and that sound didn't make it any better.

_It's the Falls, that's all._ Sam's rational mind didn't sound convinced, either.

The sound was a low, loud rumble that shook the earth and raised the hair on the back of Sam's neck. His imagination kicked into overdrive. He imagined all sorts of fuglies lurking in the fog, or even worse yet a ginormous big one, a Godzilla-sized one, the granddaddy of all fuglies, just waiting to eat up John Winchester's wayward sons who were stupid enough to enter the fog in the first place, especially that idiot eldest son.

Up ahead in the fog, Sam could hear Dean laughing as he plunged ahead like a fox hound happily following a scent trail.

"Dean?"

"Come on, Sammy! You gotta keep up!"

"Dean, this is crazy! Come back here!"

"No, you come on up here with me! What's the matter, Sammy? This is fun!"

When the sun burned the fog away Dean was literally hanging over the railing right over the Falls, laughing and having a fine old time. Sam backed up. He stood there with that roaring sound ringing in his ears, filling his skull, his entire body, and it was too much, way too much. It spooked him somehow, and he didn't know why.

It still spooks him, after all these years.

Now they stand on the rooftop of one of the lower buildings, and Dean's got this guarded look on his face. It's as if he realizes exactly how screwed up his head really is inside. He still puts on a show, though, snarks all smartass about things they notice in the landscape around them, like the Bates Motel down there, and Bruce Wayne's mansion over here, but it's hollow, and Sam knows it.

Dean's up to something.

_**000**_

"Hey."

"Hey, Bobby?" Another nudge on his shoulder, a little more insistent this time, and Bobby comes instantly awake, and more than a little irritated. Damn boys.

_Lea' me the hell alone. Five more minutes, that's all. Damn shame a man can't get a decent night's sleep in his own damn house…_

He raises up on one elbow. His head feels fuzzy, packed with cotton, and his chest hurts.

First thing he thinks of is that he's gonna have to get a new mattress. Hadn't noticed it before, but this one's hard as a rock, just like sleeping on the floor. Bobby's sight clears up then, and his stomach sinks when he realizes that yep, he's on the floor, all right.

Bobby has a moment of confusion when he looks at Dean because he can't remember exactly when Dean had traded in his leather coat for one of Sam's hoodies. Dean looks normal enough. No wings, no golden eyes. He looks normal enough, but Bobby can't ignore the fact that he can see straight through the boy.

Dean's image flickers, like he's trying to adjust the signal or something. He never becomes solid, not all the way, but it does become harder to see through him.

Bobby manages to sit up. It takes an effort to put his back against the wall, but he does it.

It's weird everywhere he looks, and it gets worse. Sam's unconscious, sitting upright with his back against the couch. The other Dean, the one with the wings, sits with his back jammed against the corner of the far wall. His head's down, his eyes are closed, and those wings of his are folded around him in a protective gesture.

"Dean, what the hell is going on?"

Dean doesn't answer. He turns and stares at his double intently, his eyes narrowed, his head turned slightly in an attitude of alertness. It's as though he sees something that Bobby can't.

"Dean?" Bobby roars hoarsely. It's not John Winchester's command voice, but it's close enough. "You gotta answer me, Dean. You gotta let me know what's going on."

"Sammy tricked him," Dean says slowly. He nods at the winged man. "Tricked him into letting Sam inside our head."

"Sam's inside your --"

"Inside my head." Dean's voice is too calm, too quiet.

_Shit, this is bad_, Bobby thinks to himself.

"The Demon's inside me, Bobby." Dean's voice is casual, like he's discussing the weather. "They rigged up some kind of bone talisman with some of his spirit attached to it. Got it inside me now. The only reason I remember your name is 'cause I'm with Sam now."

"Who's they?"

"Demons."

"Where are you boys now?"

Dean just stands there, staring at his winged self.

"Dammit boy, don't zone out on me now. _Where are you now?"_

Dean nods. "In there. I can't remember who I am if Sam isn't around, so the bastard is gonna try to kill him. He's got plans for me. That's why I came back looking like that. World's gonna end soon, Bobby. It's all gonna end because of me."

Dean laughs, shakes his head. "I'm never gonna be the same as I was before." Dean turns, stares at Bobby, and the look on the younger man's face isn't bitter, just resigned. Dean's almost thirty, but he looks too young, vulnerable somehow. "Sam thinks he can fix me, y'know? He can't. And if anything happens to you or him because of me, I don't think I could…" Dean's voice trails off, and his face goes blank for a few seconds, and Bobby can see the exact moment when Dean literally mans up, slips his game face on.

Bobby's face is a mirror image. He knows what's coming next. Damn it, he knows, and he hates it.

"I want you to promise me," Dean stands up straighter, squares his shoulders back. "I'll get Sam out, but you gotta wake up first. You got to. I'll do what I can to keep us under while you…find what you need out here. A head shot with silver loads oughta do it. I want you to take care of me. Sam won't do it. He won't. Don't let 'im throw his life away for me. You gotta promise me that I won't wake up. Will you do that for me?"

"Son, this is one godawful mess."

"I know. It gets worse."

"How the hell could it get any worse?"

"There's another one out there somewhere. Looks just like me, but darker. I told Sammy about him. I'm telling you now. You have to kill everything that looks like me, Bobby. You have to."

"Damn you Winchesters. How do you think I'm gonna feel about this? Do you realize what you're asking me to do? You're asking me to kill somebody I respect. I think of you boys like you're my own, you know that."

"I know."

"It's not right."

"I know that too."

"I'll…I'll do it."

_**000**_

I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing. Please review.

Next update? Saturday.


	17. Lost Cause Remix Dean

_**Chapter 17 – Lost Cause Remix: Dean's Second Interlude **_

_**A/N: **_I would have posted this Saturday morning, but RL got in the way. I'm still choreographing the fight between Dean and Azazel but I still wanted to post something before then. This is a flashback chapter that fleshes out some of what happened to Dean down in hell (Chapter 9- first interlude). About the pop culture references in this one: if you haven't seen any of the _**Dr. Phibes**_ movies when Vincent Price takes off that mask of his, or that _**Mr. Sardonicus**_ movie, Google them and take a gander at the pics that come up. Dude, they're _fugly_.

Thanks to every one who's following this story. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and much thanks to all the lurkers out there.

_**Warnings: **_This chapter does contain a lot of angst, cursing, demonic violence, weird imagery and, to quote Dean, "evil that comes out of nowhere and rips you to shreds." Also, there's one mention of rape but it's brief, fairly non-graphic and in italics. Just thought I'd warn ya.

_**Summary: **_A lot of stuff happened down in hell that Dean never told Sam about. Never told him, never will.

_**000**_

_You can't see the scars on me, Sammy. Good thing you can't. You'd run screaming from me, bro'. Even you would. _

* * *

After they played with him like a kitten plays with a mouse, they'd slither, crawl, or walk away laughing. He was usually split open by that time, a broken toy with torn stitches, stuffing spilling out every which way on those hot, steaming rocks.

They'd talk to him while they ripped him open. Those demon bastards loved to talk.

_You're a screamer, little boy. We like you. We like you a lot. When your daddy was down here, he wasn't much fun. Strong silent type. Not like you. We like the noises you make. You're so much fun to play with!_

Dean _was_ very vocal, so it was true, up to a point. He cursed, mostly. He always told them that he was going to "slaughter every last one of you sonsabitches", and they always laughed. He tried killing a few, tried to make them pay for touching him, but he couldn't, not with his bare hands and no weapons, but just because he couldn't didn't mean he wasn't going to go down swinging. His mind went blank as he twisted and snarled underneath their weight. He wasn't going to become their bitch without a fight.

They were all black eyed. Some of them had reddish orange skin covered with sores and blotches, others had pale grey skin stretched tight over sharp bone. Some had faces, some didn't, just smooth blankness where their eyes and noses should have been. Those were the ones who were all mouth, huge gaping holes in the center of their faces, filled with hundreds of jagged needle teeth. A few of them looked human, "normal" men and women, ordinary folk that you just wouldn't look twice at on the street. There were giant man-sized slugs in the group, and several of the others were stick figure people, horns curving out from their foreheads, short stubby tails in the back.

It was usually pretty one-sided, never one on one. They'd swarm him, ten or twenty at a time. Dean fought them as best he could, and they seemed to enjoy it more when he put up a fight, but let's face it, last time he checked there wasn't any big red S on his chest. He was only human and he was in hell. Not a lot of positives_ there_, buddy.

…_pretty boy…such a pretty little morsel…_

Dean never was too fond of the word "pretty."

He always lost his voice by the end. He called them everything but children of God, and then some. Sometimes he couldn't make any noise at all because his vocal chords had been ripped out. They left his eyes alone, and after the first time he got it. He really did.

They _wanted_ him to see what they'd done to him.

Afterwards he'd pull himself upright if he could. He'd try to ignore that squishy feeling in his body, those godawful wet sounds as his intestines mashed up against broken splintered bones. He'd sit there shaking and trembling, and no, that wasn't him making those gasping, sobbing sounds, no siree, he was just getting his breath back, thank you very much. Dean watched his guts draw back inside him, stared in disbelief at his exposed heart as it started pumping again, slowly and steadily. His bones weaved themselves back together, followed by the slow careful knitting of the muscles in his arms, chest and legs. Tendons stretched and re-attached themselves, then his skin would close up, smooth and clear and unmarked.

Every single damn time.

Dean was sure they weren't doing him any favors.

They never touched his wings. Not even once. He lost a few of the long flight feathers each time as they took him down, but those demons knew what they liked, and they liked _Dean_. They were pretty enthusiastic about it. Those wings of his didn't seem to matter that much.

Sometimes his back was broken, all crunched up like a shattered piece of chalk, and he couldn't move until everything was back together. He'd lie there, sprawled on his side, back or stomach, breathing in long, slow gasps, breathing in lungfuls of methane and sulfur and God only knew what else. He could feel his body healing itself back together. It didn't feel good and it didn't feel right.

Even the scars he'd had when he was alive had been smoothed away as though they had never been. He always wondered _why._ Why did he heal up so nicely, each and every fucking time? Why no scars? Why they didn't just rip his face off and leave him like that, let him stumble around hell for all eternity looking fugly like Dr. Phibes or Mr. Sardonicus?

_Oh, that dude over there? The one with no face? Used to be this hotshot demon hunter named Dean Winchester. Pretty boy ain't so pretty any more. _

Naturally, it got worse.

Much worse.

_We love your mouth, Dean. What a fine looking son of Adam you are! You know you want this, the blood and the pain and all. You want us to know you like this, you want us to claim you over and over again, that's why you made the deal for Sammy in the first place. If it hadn't been your brother, you would have found another reason to come down here and let us play with you like this. Whatever we do to you is nothing compared to what you do to yourself. _

The Fixer had kicked him to the curb right after she pulled Dark out of him. Kicked him to the curb and tossed him out into the lowlands. For once Dean was glad that he was a freak, grateful Dark and the Fixer had decided to leave him alone. Near as Dean could tell, this was Hell's garbage heap. He wasn't the only cast-off in the place. The ones who lived here were even fuglier than the regular demons. They kept to the shadows, but Dean could see deformed limbs. Freakishly oversized heads. Withered hands and arms. Some of them didn't even have legs. They could've ganged up on him, but they didn't. It was that blank, dead look in their eyes that got to Dean, and he knew that if he stayed in this one place, sooner or later he'd have that same damn look.

He tried to measure each day by the number of times he was attacked, and how long it took him to heal afterwards. His time sense was all screwed up and it was easy to get confused.

The lowlands of hell gradually sloped into hillsides of black rock, then jagged mountains that towered high into that dark red sky. The path was worn smooth, so Dean knew he wasn't the only one who had ever gone up. He stood there swaying at the bottom of the hill, listing heavily to his left side while his right kneecap slid into place and the bones of his left wrist came together again.

_Dad,_ Dean thought to himself. _Dad was here._ He could sense an echo of John Winchester in this godforsaken place. Dean could see his Dad standing tall, proud and defiant. Dad never got down on his knees. Dad never screamed himself hoarse. Dean had no doubt about that. His own throat tightened up and for some reason his eyes got wet despite the hot dry air swirling around him and he wiped at his face with shaky soot covered fingers.

There was something in the air. That was _it_. That was_ all_. There was _always_ something in the air down here, and maybe he was allergic to it.

The mountains stretched upwards as far as the eye could see. Dean leaned back, damn near fell over on his ass trying to take it all in. He didn't have many options. He couldn't stay here. If they wanted him, he'd make the bastards work for it.

The path was clearly marked, and it went up. He wasn't too thrilled with heights, but he didn't have a lot of options right about now.

_And besides, if this was good enough for Dad, it's good enough for me._

As soon as he was able, Dean started climbing.

_**000**_

Damn wings were next to useless. They slowed him up, weighed him down. He cursed them, ignored them. They were a constant reminder on his back. The weight was there and it wasn't going away.

As far as Dean was concerned, his wings were good for only one thing. When he got tired he'd crawl into one of the small caves in the mountainside, either curl up in a ball on the floor or sit with his back against the cave wall, fold his wings around him and try to rest. He knew he was covered from head to toe in a thin film of red dust and black soot. Despite everything that had happened to him so far, his wings were still cleaner looking than the rest of him, at least. That light blue color, speckled with robin's egg blue, was comforting somehow. It reminded him of a blanket he'd had when he was a little kid. His feathers were soft against his skin, and they kept him warm. He felt cold, chilled right down to his bones.

Cold in hell. Huh. Who knew?

Fucking blue feathers. _Blue._ Couldn't be a guy color, like black or hot rod red. Had to be this gay light freaking blue color. Damn wings. _Finally good for something,_ Dean mumbled groggily to himself. At least he felt warm when he closed his eyes and drifted off.

He twitched and moaned in his sleep.

_It's okay, baby, it's all right, _Mary whispered.

_M-Mom? Mom, please…_

_Sam needs you right now, Dean. He doesn't want to live. He's trying to kill himself so he can join you down there. You can't let that happen. You can't…_

Lips pressed against his forehead and he settled under the touch. _Angels are watching over both of you. You may not believe it, but they are, Dean. They always are._

He woke up confused, blinking rapidly at first, unable to understand why he was alone in the dark. A last ghost echo in his head -- a_ngels are watching over you _-- and Dean snorted scornfully. _Angels. Yeah. Right._ He was the star of heaven's own peep show. They hadn't done him any flaming favors for the last twenty eight years, had they? So why the hell would they start _now_?

No sense in being a damn girl about it. He got unsteadily to his feet, went back outside, found another handhold in the rocks and kept on climbing.

He flexed his wings a little more. Dean told himself it was just to relax the tension in his shoulders. He fairly growled at the damn things to stay the hell out of his way, and he folded them up tight against his back. They unfurled anyway and spread a little as he climbed. He kept his balance that way but in true Winchester fashion decided to ignore it.

There were damned souls up in those rocks.

Most of them steered clear of him. The sight of his wings seemed to unnerve them. There was this one couple, a man and a woman, couldn't even been any older than Sam, twenty four maybe, but their eyes were too bright and Dean instinctively knew that they had been here for a long damn time.

They sat there on the hot steaming rocks as though they were sitting on a park bench topside somewhere, nice and cool in the shade. The dude plunged the rock knife into his thigh right above his kneecap and giggled as he pulled the blade towards him. He didn't bleed much, and his face and body was crisscrossed with hundreds of scars. He had half an ear on his right side. The tip of his nose had been sawed off. He'd been hacking away at himself for a long time. He looked at Dean and smiled brightly.

"Is it time, Michael? Is it time? I got _right_," the dude declared in a loud singsong voice. "I got myself right. I did. _I got right!_"

Except for that queer flat glint to her eyes, the woman was relatively untouched. She took the shard in her left hand and calmly plunged it into the man's right eye socket.

Dean's own right eye twinged sharply in sympathy. The young dude didn't even flinch. He chuckled happily as the woman twisted the shard around in his eye.

"There now. There. This'll help you see better, baby," she crooned. Thick black blood oozed out around the edges of the hole.

Dean couldn't climb away from there fast enough.

He found himself hanging off a sheer section of the mountainside sometime later. Hanging onto that sheer rock wall scared the shit out of him, but he didn't look down. The rocks were so hot the skin of his fingers and the soles of his feet and toes peeled off in long crispy black strips. His nose filled with the stench of his burning flesh and the smoke stung his eyes. He lost his grip, and the next thing Dean knew he was in free fall.

He slammed against the side of the cliff once, twice, three times, head over heels, and mercifully everything went white with pain at the first hard knock upside his head. A violent spasm shuddered through his shoulder blades. Air rushed past him, and that terrible pull on his shoulders didn't stop. Dean heard the beating of his heart inside his head, like a hammer against his ribs, but there was another beat inside there, too. He didn't know what the second beat was, and it was the least of his worries. The fall wouldn't kill him, just split him open and make him wish that it had.

He waited to hit the ground, and he never did.

When his sight cleared he'd slipped more than a mile back down the cliff. The skin on his right side was red and blistered from scraping up against the rocks. His left arm hung useless. Dislocated, from the feel of it, when he'd slammed sideways into the rock wall on his way down. His right kneecap was swollen, but considering what could have happened, he'd gotten off light, and despite the pain that was exactly how he felt. Light as a friggin' feather.

Dean hovered in mid-air. The lowlands stretched out a mile below his dangling feet.

His wings scooped at the air, awkwardly at first, like a fledging tossed out of the nest by a jealous sibling. After a few frantic wingbeats they found their rhythm and evened out, smooth and steady.

_Son of a bitch. _

_**000**_

Dean looked down sometimes while he was climbing, just to orient himself. It had gotten easier to do once he mastered the trick of using his wings for lift and balance as he climbed. It was easier to climb that way, but he still didn't trust them entirely. Or maybe he just didn't trust himself. Flying was still flying, and he hated it, but hey, he had the damn things, and they weren't going anywhere. Might as well put 'em to good use.

He looked down one day (month? week? year?) and realized that he still had quite a following.

He was being hunted.

They flattened themselves against the rocks when he glanced down, but several of them weren't quick enough, weren't fast enough to get completely out of sight. Dean was less than half a mile ahead of them, but he picked out details easily enough. Reddish orange flesh, black eyes. Ram's horns and pale grey skin. It was the same set of demonic bastards who'd savaged him the first time. Apparently they missed him and they wanted him back.

The sky above continued to bleed, a nasty thick smear of blood red color. Some parts of it seemed lighter and thinner, but Dean figured that maybe that was just wishful thinking on his part. He thought of Sam whenever he looked up. _He'll be all right. He'll be fine. He's stronger than I am. I know he is_, Dean lied to himself. He kept on lying to himself, and he kept right on climbing and flexing his wings.

_**000**_

The shit hit the fan not long after that.

Dean slowed up. He let them see him struggle. His wings beat uselessly at the air several times. He radiated weakness, sent the signal back down to them, hoping they'd get careless and take the bait.

_I'm weak, I'm helpless. Come and get me._

Dean picked the spot, and waited. The pathway narrowed into this clearing that was sheltered by tall rocks all around. There was a gap leading up, but if he wanted to keep going up he'd have to fold his wings in close to his body in order to pass through. He waited until they were close enough, until he could hear them, smell them, then he stepped into the gap.

They came surging out of the rocks all around him, growling, hissing and screeching. Their bright black eyes were too bright and their jagged mouths were wide open, ready to bite and taste him again.

_Welcome back, boy. We sure did miss you. _

All that time alone had started Dean to thinking, which was never a good thing. He had the wings, but he didn't have a flaming sword. Would have been a joke if he had. He didn't even have his favorite knife. All he had were these ridiculous speckled blue wings. They were part of him, and it was more than enough. He was tired of running, tired of being afraid, and something that had been coiled in on itself deep inside him relaxed. It was like a door had been opened all the way, and this time there was no stress, no pressure. He was fine with whatever this was.

_I've hunted down and killed bastards like you,_ he thought to himself. _It's what I do, and I'm damned good at it. Time to raise a little hell up in here. _

Dean cleared the gap in one leap. His wings unfolded in one smooth motion as he twisted around halfway. The leading edge of his blade feathers hardened to razor sharpness as his right wing slashed through the air.

The first four demons that reached him lost their heads, their arms, and other body parts.

The others were either too stupid or too enraged to fall back. Dean's wings glowed icy blue and white hot. The air went dark with slick demon blood and chunks of flesh flew through the air.

He finally came back to himself moments later. Both feet on the ground again, and his wings lifted up behind him and twitched a little. That was the only movement in the clearing. There were body parts everywhere, and that was just the damndest thing.

_They were all dead. _

He'd killed them _all_, every last damn one. The adrenaline rush was so strong it made him stagger a little as it jolted up his spine. He could take on the whole damn world feeling this way, Heaven and Hell and all points in between…

"That's my boy," this voice rumbled behind him, whiskey smooth and all too familiar.

Dean hesitated, confused, uncertain. _Dad…no, can't be. Dad got out. I saw him. He got out --_

Dean turned around, ready to lash out again in any direction.

Dark leaned against the rock wall on the other side of the clearing, his leather wings neatly folded against his back.

"Well, aren't you one handsome devil," Dean drawled. His voice was even lower and deeper than Dad's had been.

A severed demon head lay inches away from Dark's bare feet. He pushed himself upright and dropkicked the head over the edge of the cliff. "And the crowd goes wild, " Dark quipped. Dean scowled and Dark rolled his eyes. "Now where's that legendary sense of humor, bro'?"

"I'm not your damn bro'." Dean snapped, and Dark laughed.

"Yeah, you're right. We're way closer than_ that_. Every time you had to give something up for Sammy, every time Dad took you for granted I got stronger. The day that Cassie girl dumped you? That was one'a the best days of my life," Dark smirked.

"I gotta tell you, on a scale of one to ten?" Dean circled slowly to the left. "This gets a three. Seriously. The part where the hero dukes it out with his evil double has been done to death."

Dark shook his head. "You're _not_ a hero, Dean. Not in_ this_ story." Dark's leathery wings spread out behind him as he stepped right. "You're just some fucked up kid who has a chance to be a part of something greater than yourself. That's all you are. That's all you _ever_ were."

"Is that so?" Dean grinned, bright, wicked sharp. "Geez, that stings."

"It should. You died so Sam could live, and what does that ungrateful snot-nosed brat do? He's up there right now trying to waste himself. Suicide by fugly. Not what you had in mind, now is it?"

Dean's wings twitched. The edges of his feathers sparked icy blue.

"That trick of yours won't work on me, just your average black eyed riff raff." Dark backed up a little more.

It was Dean's turn to smirk. "No shit? Why you running, then, huh?"

"I'm not supposed to kick your ass. Not supposed to damage the merchandise. Not _yet_ anyway. That stuff with your wings? You got Tia Maleficum to thank for that. She fixed you. You got_ adjusted_, whether you wanted it or not. We just had to give you time to grow into it, you know?" Dark shrugged. "It's time to come back, Dean. A few more changes, and you'll be all ready for the Last Great Show. Sam can be by your side, either way, whether he kills himself or hangs around for the Show. We'll all be one big happy family again, for all eternity. You won't have to wonder or worry about him."

_Dean..._

Dean didn't answer.

_Dean, I'm sorry._

Dean froze. Sam's voice was in his head.

_I miss you. I don't know what else to do..._

_Sam _was in Dean's head.

"Come on, Dean." Dark actually sounded exasperated. Dean barely heard him. "This is the best life after death you're _ever_ gonna get. You're Nephilim, boy. Last time I checked, you guys aren't exactly on God's List of Favorite People."

_I thought I could save you, and I couldn't. I believed Ruby, and you were right all along. I shouldn't have listened to her. She lied to me, and I let you down. I can't do this anymore, Dean. I can't live like this…_

"You're not going to one'a those wine and cheese sips up at the Big Guy's house." Dark rolled his eyes. "You ain't getting an invite, and neither is Sam."

Dark was in the background now, a dim shadow making sounds that didn't even matter anymore. He went from a potential threat to a nuisance in six seconds flat.

"Hey, 'm talkin' to you. Hey!"

The sky above them opened up, and Dean's wingtips twitched restlessly in response.

_I'm coming Sam. I'm coming. You hold on, you hear me? Dammit, you hold on…_

The air rattled and shook as Dean spread his wings and launched himself skyward.

_**000**_

Okay, kids, this is as good a place to stop as any. Remember, this was a flashback. The carnage resumes in "real time" on Thursday.


	18. Dead Weight

_**Chapter 18 - Dead Weight**_

_**A/N: **_The Latin Azazel uses is gibberish. Or you could say it's a bastardized version of the Rituale Romanum. Yeah, that's it. _Looks around all shifty-eyed._ That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

_**Disclaimer: **_I don't own Azazel, Sam, Bobby or Dean. There. Ya happy now?

_**000**_

Azazel's larger than life, clean and inhumanly handsome. His feet don't even touch the ground and that's as it should be.

Adin kneels there and stares dully with his good left eye as Azazel walks towards him. Adin hunches over, tries to draw back into himself. His right eye is swollen shut, and his skin is covered with bruises and black soot. He shivers in the cold and damp. The stump of Adin's missing left wing twitches and trembles. He still has his right wing, but his feathers have been shredded, pulled off and discarded. Azazel gestures with his right hand and a wind comes up, hot and scorching. The feathers scattered in the dirt around Adin are blown away, out of his reach. Even that's been taken away from him.

It's just as well. He hates himself, hates that he let Father down. When Azazel kneels down in front of him Adin tries to shy away, but he can't feel his legs, and he doesn't go far. He's drab and dirty, he doesn't deserve to occupy the same space with such perfection. He struggles weakly as his father puts his arms around him. The touch burns, but Adin doesn't pull away and he doesn't flinch. He deserves this. It's his burden, and he has to atone somehow.

"You see?" Azazel murmurs softly into the shell of Adin's right ear. "You see what you made me do?"

Adin takes one long shuddering breath. "Yes, Father…"

"You're a good boy. A good son. You always have been."

"Please," Adin sobs. "Please…give me another chance. Another chance…to make it right…"

All he can feel is the warmth of his father's body pressed close against him.

"It's all right. You'll be fine. I'll give it all back to you, and you'll be as good as new. Better than before... "

Azazel whispers into the boy's flushed skin.

…_inferi dominationes sanctus persecutor. Omnium angelis tempus et mortus…_

Adin's back arches violently, but he doesn't scream out. He won't.

The bones of his missing left wing push out from underneath his skin, and moments later, ice blue feathers blossom over those shredded wing blades.

_**000**_

God Almighty, what a mess.

He could waste his time feeling angry. Plenty of time for that later. He's done it before, gone into the yard after he'd lost someone else near and dear to him, stood there yelling and screaming at the sky, demanding answers he knows he's never going to get. God may work in mysterious ways, but would it kill Him to give the rest of us a clue sometimes?

Bobby stands there with the gun in his hand. It feels wrong to be able to stand there and stare at Dean like that. It feels wrong to have the weight of the gun in his hand, but it's _his_ weight. He gave his word. It's the most valuable thing he's got.

He's positioned himself between the brothers, closer to Dean, less than an arms length, but with a clear view of Sam.

Once Sam is clear, one pull of the trigger is all it will take.

Still and all, Bobby's prepared to pull the trigger a second time, if need be.

Bobby grips the butt of the gun so tightly the crosshatching bites into his skin, but he doesn't even notice. The gun's one of his oldest ones. A Colt Python revolver, solid and heavy. Four inch barrel. 357 Magnum caliber. It's a reliable old workhorse, just like Bobby. It's never jammed on him, and the big bore loads are special: silver, tempered in holy water.

He can't hear himself breathing. That's not a sound that concerns him right now. Bobby is frozen inside and he doesn't mind. He'll thaw out later, if there's time for that.

Sam breathes in and out, light and untroubled. Bobby watches the slow rise and fall of Dean's chest. Dean's breathing is a little more labored than Sam's; he pulls air into his lungs in fits and starts.

Dean's skin is unmarked; even the scars he got while hunting are gone. Bobby knows there should be that crescent shaped one over Dean's right bicep, because he helped sew that one up, one cold February night five years ago, when John and Dean showed up on his doorstep, beat all to hell and bleeding. Dean stumbled inside, swaying on his feet as he shouldered John's heavy trembling weight. Dean wouldn't sit down, and he ignored his own wounds, wouldn't let Bobby tend to him until John was looked after.

It's crazy, but Bobby wants to touch him on the shoulder, wants to tell Dean in that gruff voice of his that everything will be all right, even though he knows damn well it won't be, and probably never will be again.

_You have to do it, Bobby. You have to kill everything that looks like me._

Dean sits there with his back against the wall, his head tilted to one side. His wings are draped protectively around him. The line of his neck is long and muscular, vulnerable somehow. He looks like a marble statue, a work of art frozen in place. That spray of freckles across his nose and eyelids stands out against the paleness of his skin. Physically Dean resembles Mary so much, right down to the shape of his eyes and mouth, and those ridiculously long dark eyelashes. Bobby knows it must have been hard for John to have Dean by his side, then risk his son in the hunt, time and time again. It was a wonder John didn't lose his mind completely.

Sometimes Bobby thinks John actually did lose it from time to time.

That left wing looks strange. It's on the other side nearest the wall, draped neatly over Dean's knees. The right wing overlaps it so it's almost hidden from view. Bobby stares at it for a moment. He thinks he's knows what he's looking at. He's seen enough mangled birds after the dogs in the yard got done playing with them, but the size and scale of Dean's wings is overwhelming, and it takes several seconds for Bobby to realize that the long bone of the left wing is broken.

It's all in the details, and Bobby knows he'll remember all of this for the rest of his life, no matter how long that might be.

Bobby stands there. And he waits.

_**000**_

They're still up on the roof, but it's time to move on. Dean feels himself getting twitchy all over. He needs to fly, but that would mean getting separated from Sam, and it's not time. Not yet.

Sam just stands there, leaning over the ledge, staring out at Dean's seriously screwed up headspace. "Be easier if we had the Colt," Sam says softly, and Dean feels everything screech to a halt. "That way you wouldn't have to martyr yourself."

As soon as he hears that tone in Sam's voice, Dean puts this puzzled look on his face. He plans on lying for as long as he possibly can. He assumes this _Who, me? Don't know what you're talking about, dude_ expression on his face, and by itself it might at least help him stall for time with Sam.

Dean's wings have other ideas. That icy blue speckled color lightens up, then shifts back again. The wings droop like a puppy that's been scolded for chewing up a pair of slippers. Dean feels the downward pull on his shoulders, and there's not a damned thing he can do about it. He can't play it off, and he can't hide it. He wouldn't be able to hustle pool or poker with these things around. _Damn. _

Now that it's out in the open, Dean releases the breath he'd been holding in. A shudder runs through his wings, from the flight feathers to the wingtips.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "It would be." The only thing Dean can see is that look on Sam's face, a mixture of quiet resignation, fear, sadness and anger all mixed together, all things that Dean doesn't like seeing. The one Dean really hates is the main emotion, the one above everything else, and that's disgust.

Sam hates himself right now.

"Ruby took it. You were right all along. You told me not to trust her. I should have listened to you."

"Sam, why you doin' this to yourself?"

"Why? Why not?" Sam's eyes flash cold and hard. His voice is loud, as unyielding as the stone beneath their feet. "I screwed up. Big time. I lost you, all right? I listened to that demon bitch when I shouldn't have. I let you die in that damn basement, cold and alone, and that crossroads bitch came and dragged you down to hell."

Sam straightens up, pushes away from the ledge. The look of disgust on his face leaves Dean cold inside. "I fucked up a lot of things, Dean, stuff I should've gotten right, and I didn't. You want me to go down the list? We'll be here all day."

Dean stares down at the gravel, at his bare feet, then looks up again, glances over that screwed up crazy quilt landscape. He looks but he doesn't see. It's a constant reminder of how fucked up the inside of Dean's head really is, and the novelty has completely worn off.

"You didn't screw up. You didn't." Dean shakes his head wearily. "I can tell you that 'til I'm blue in the face, and none of it matters, 'cause you don't believe me."

"You don't have to lie to me like that. I'm not a kid anymore, Dean. I'm your brother and we're supposed to be family, you know? Supposed to look out for each other. You can't have everything your own way, Dean. You can't. You don't even wanna consider how I feel? I don't have any say in this?"

The word comes out of Dean flat and rough. Ugly. "No."

"No?"

"Want me to say it again, Sam?" Dean roughens his voice, and Sam gets it. _Dad's voice._ The voice John Winchester used when he and his youngest son would get into it. That rough, deep, authoritarian voice. _My way or the highway. _Dean might be clueing off Sam, but he's got that voice down to perfection. It makes Sam _want_ to step away, makes him _want_ to leave.

Sam gets it.

"You don't have a say in the matter," Dean rumbles. "You don't." He steps close, right up in Sam's personal space. Dean's wings spread out behind him, massive and somehow threatening, and that cuts Sam's height advantage down to nothing. He can't compete with that, and they both know it. Dean stares Sam right in the face. "What part of 'no' didn't you get?"

Sam smiles at him, and Dean doesn't budge. He's seen that smile before, razor sharp, the smile Sam gets when he's found someone out, when he knows exactly what's going on. Sam smiles and shakes his head. "You're unbelievable, you know that?"

Something flickers in Dean's eyes. "That's true," he says smugly. No retreat. No backing down from any of this.

"When are you planning on ditching me?"

Dean blinks. "What?"

Sam stares at him.

"There's something wrong with you. There is," Sam says simply.

"Oh yeah? Like what?" Dean snaps.

Another head shake. "Wish to God I knew, Dean. Maybe it's programmed into you. I don't know." Sam shrugs. "The way you're willing to just throw yourself away like this, time after time…I don't know. I don't know if that's Dad's doing, the way we were raised, or what. You carry everything all by yourself, and you won't let me help."

Sam's face and voice softens, just as Dean's expression grows harder, sharper. "All that weight, Dean. It'll wear you down, wear you out. You're my brother and you don't have to carry all this yourself. You don't."

Sam does exactly what Dean expects him to do. He reaches out to his brother, touches him gently on the top of his right shoulder. It's a light touch, and it's more than enough. In the last split second Sam realizes something's up but it's way too late by then. Something like static electricity sparks between Sam's fingers as soon as he touches Dean. It travels up Sam's arm in an instant. Sam's head rocks back as his knees buckle. He slides down into darkness, and the pull is gentle yet strong.

"I'm sorry, Sam." Dean steps into him, neatly catches Sam as he slumps forward. Dean's wings spread out behind to help him maintain his balance. He takes just enough energy from Sam to put him under and keep him there. The realization that he can influence everything here in this place occurred to him back at the house, as he watched the ceiling melt away so they could escape, and he didn't have any problem with that. It was when he realized that _everything_ included _Sam_, well, that was the part that sucked big time.

Dean feels like ten kinds of a bastard right about now.

He knew he couldn't talk Sam into leaving. Sam wouldn't listen. All he sees when he looks at Dean is his brother, his family.

_I've lost so much. I'm not losing you too, Dean. _

_I'm not gonna pull you down with me, bro'. I'm not._

Images of his past life surge behind his eyes, turns them an even brighter, deeper green. Good, bad, and indifferent, Dean holds onto them all as best he can, for as long as he can.

_"But see, my mom, I know she wanted me to be brave and I think about that everyday…and I do my best to be brave."_

_"Dad doesn't want our help." _

_" I don't care."_

_"He's given us an order!"_

_" I. Don't. Care. We don't always have to do what he says."_

_" Well, I kinda have this problem with, hum… "_

_" Flying?"_

_" It's never been an issue until now."_

_" You're joking, right?"_

_" Do I look like I'm joking? Why do you think I drive everywhere Sam?"_

_"I told her the secret about what we do and I shouldn't have."_

_" No, look man; everybody's got to open up to someone sometime."_

_" I don't. It was stupid to get that close, look how it ended."_

_"I'm sorry."_

_" For what?"_

_" The way I've been acting... And for Dad. Well, he was your Dad, too. It's my fault that he's gone."_

_"Some stuff happened to me recently, and, uh…Anyway, a guy in my situation…you start to think, you know. I'm gonna be gone one day, and what am I leaving behind besides a car?_

_"I was desperate. You ever felt desperate?" Dixon said dully. " I've lost everyone I ever loved. I'm staring down eternity alone. Can you think of a worse hell?"_

_" Well, there's Hell."_

_"It's just, I wish you would drop the show and be my brother again 'cause…just 'cause."_

"I can't. I'm sorry, Sam. I just can't." Dean says softly. Sam's chin digs into the top of Dean's shoulder. The height and weight difference between them has never felt so obvious but it doesn't matter.

Last time, last time he knelt in the darkness and the dirt Sam was dead weight.

"_Hey, look. Look at me. It's not even that bad. It's not even that bad, alright? Sammy?"_

He was gone. Dean could feel it.

"_Sam! Hey, listen to me. We're gonna patch you up, okay? You'll be good as new. Huh? I'm gonna take care of you."_

It was a lie. A fucking lie. The darkness took his family again, and he was so fucking useless, he couldn't stop it. His knees buckled then, and he couldn't stop it. He couldn't stop any of it.

"_No! No. Sam. Whoa, Sam. Sam. Sam, hey. Hey, come here. Let me look at you…"_

No life, no breath. Nothing.

"_I'll take care of you. I got you. That's my job, right? Watch out for my pain-in-the-ass little brother."_

That black hole inside him got deeper, and he felt like screaming, but the only thing that came out was those words, over and over again.

"_Sam? Sam. Sam! Sammy! No. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, God. Oh, God. Sam!"_

Now he holds Sam in his arms again and this time is different. This time is better. Sam's alive. He's got a heart beat. Sam's breathing, and it might be an illusion in this place, but Dean knows that somewhere outside this fucked up head of his Sam's got a live body to go back to.

"Last time I held you in my arms like this," Dean says aloud, softly, hoarsely, "you were dead." His throat closes up, and he swallows thickly, roughly, to clear it. The corners of his eyes feel damp, somehow gritty. He ignores that too."You were dead, Sam, and I think you died before you hit the ground. I felt it when you left. Tried to fool myself into thinking otherwise, but I couldn't. I'm holding you like that now, but you're breathing." Dean tightens his grip. "You're alive, and I'm gonna keep you that way, you hear me? You're gonna stay that way."

Dean puts his cheek against the side of Sam's head. He closes his eyes as he rubs his head up and down a little in Sam's hair. He breathes in Sam's scent. Kid's warm. Gloriously warm and alive. "You can hate me for this," Dean whispers softly. "It's okay if you do."

Dean's wings spread out behind him, twitching slightly like a restless dog about to slip off its leash. He has to go high up to get Sam out. The Sears Tower observation deck should do nicely.

It won't be long after that. Bobby won't hesitate.

This is his weight, and he accepts it. He always has. Dean stands there straight and tall, and he holds Sam up, carries the kid like he always has, and it feels right. It's the the easiest thing in the world.

He feels _strong_. He feels_ light_.

As light as a feather.

000

The curtain goes up on the Last Great Show on Earth in the next chapter. Of course, if some of you lurkers would review, that might help me write faster…


	19. red rain

_**A/N: **_Chapter title is taken from the Peter Gabriel song of the same title.

_**Disclaimer – If you recognize 'em, I don't own em. **_

* * *

**_Chapter 19 – red rain_**

John Winchester sits cross legged in the grass. He never really gave much thought where he'd end up after he died, but he sure in the hell never thought it would be _here_.

He hears snatches of conversation among the angels in the clouds overhead. Raphael stands off to the side, waiting patiently, but John ignores him. It's nothing personal. His attention is riveted on the small patch of water directly in front of him. It's about the size and shape of a large round mirror. The surface is clear, smooth as glass.

John leans forward and forgets how to breathe for a moment as he stares at the reflection.

He sees Dean. And Sam.

Dean stands there with his head bowed, his back to the mirror. His head and neck are framed by the impressive span of his wings, speckled and glorious icy blue. John can see only Dean's profile, turned slightly at an angle, but it's more than enough. It's one of the few times John has ever seen his eldest son so still and quiet. Dean holds Sam upright, holds him easily but tightly like Sam's a precious thing.

Sam's head lolls gently on Dean's broad shoulder. His face is hidden by those shaggy bangs of his and the edge of Dean's wing. John sees only the curve of his youngest son's chin, the side of his face, but it's enough. It's more than enough.

Sammy needs a haircut.

John wishes he could tell Sam that. John wants to brush that hair away from Sam's forehead so he can see his face once more. He wants to hug Dean, look into those troubled green eyes again.

Dean's eyes are soft, open and vulnerable underneath those impossibly long dark lashes of his. He stares down at the ground as he holds Sam upright. John blinks away that annoying wetness around his eyes.

_I put too much on your shoulders. I made you grow up too fast. _

The look on Dean's face is awful and familiar. John knows that look. He's seen it enough, on other men's faces, back in 'Nam, and stateside, on hunts. _He's saying good-bye,_ John thinks. _Saying goodbye to everything._

John ignores the way his chest tightens up. Can't play it off by pretending there's something in the air. He's past having allergies, and bawling like a stone bitch won't help anyone in the coming fight, so he ignores it.

His sweet little boy's become a grown man, a lethal hunter, a good-hearted but flawed martyr.

Raphael folds his wings and sits down next to him. John nods in greeting but Raphael doesn't say much. He never has. John leans forward and his hand shakes slightly as he skims the surface of the mirror with his fingers, right along the nape of Dean's neck.

"My boys," John whispers softly to himself. "I am so damn proud of both of you."

He doesn't expect a reaction, but he nearly falls over when Dean reacts to his touch. Dean raises his head up, frowning, suddenly alert, as his wings jerk restlessly.

John jerks his hand back. "Can he--"

Dean holds Sam close as he narrows his eyes, glances around warily.

"Hear you? I don't think so." Raphael sighs, wriggles his toes inside his leather sandals, fidgets inside that bronze and silver body armor of his. Raphael's more comfortable wearing a physician's smock, but the way things are about to be, everyone's needed now. "Thought you might need some company before the Show starts," he adds mildly.

"Never have liked waiting," John mutters softly as he leans forward to stare at the mirror again.

Dean takes a quick look around. His wings stroke downward, and he and Sam are a blue-tinged blur as they take flight, straight up.

The mirror goes cloudy and fades away into thick spiky green grass.

"I'll be there when he crosses over," John says calmly. It's not a question, it's a statement of fact.

Raphael nods.

John shakes his head as he rubs a hand over his stubble. "Hell of a thing," he says slowly.

Raphael just shrugs. Not much he can say in response to_ that_.

_**000**_

Gordon settles down underneath warm flesh once more. The hot warmth of blood flowing through his veins gives him quite a rush. It was actually a lot easier than he ever thought it would be. A hunter would have had anti-possession amulets in their pockets, or strung around their necks, tattoos somewhere on their body. The body he's wearing now is Searchlight. Government issue. Long on brawn and ordinance, short on imagination.

He enjoys the heavy feel of this body, smiles a little to himself as he stands up again. This one is physically fit, not as tall as Gordon was in life, but more muscular, stocky. Gordon walks over to the black SUV and he staggers at first, because the son-of-a-bitch inside is still trying to fight him.

Gordon just pushes him down inside his body even harder. He finds his stride after a few stumble steps. Gordon slides his hand into the pocket of his black government issue jumpsuit, and grins from ear to ear when he finds the keys to the SUV.

This is all good, and getting better by the moment.

He steps over the bodies of the man's three companions on his way to the vehicle. Too bad. It was a waste of perfectly good meatsuits, but he only needed one.

Gordon already knows that there's some heavy ordinance stowed away in the SUV. All of them are specially modified pieces, handguns and assault rifles. Among them is several of those guns with that peculiar bell shaped muzzle. Those weapons fire electrified containment nets, just right for dealing with Dean, Dark or anything else for that matter.

And there's any number of party favors that he can use on Sammy.

Right now Gordon's unlife is pretty sweet.

Gordon glances upward at the darkening sky in the distance. Over the treeline. That's where the party's gonna start, and Sam and Dean are already there. Gordon doesn't know how he knows, he just does.

His eyes go black as he hears a noise behind him. A coil of dense black smoke snakes over the ground and right into the mouth of that blonde Searchlight operative lying twisted on the ground. Her eyes open wide, blink once, then again as the demon settles in.

Gordon snorts in derision. _Fucking amateur._ He prefers live meat to dead any day. He doesn't even turn around as the demon makes the body sit straight up and its black eyes focus on the SUV. Gordon turns the key in the ignition and backs up over her, once.

Just because he felt like it. It's like hitting a speed bump, that's all.

_**000 **_

"No dogs around," Creedie whispers hoarsely. Then he wonders why he's whispering. Kubrick has this tight look on his face, skin stretched thin around the mouth and eyes. They expected to get yelled at, nearly shot at like they did before. This is worse. No sign of Bobby Singer around. The yard's quiet, and that makes Kubrick's skin crawl.

Kubrick hands off a handful of protection amulets, and Creddie slings them around his neck, tucks them underneath his shirt. Kubrick does the same and they gear up in silence. The bitch of the bunch is that they don't know exactly what they're gearing up against.

…_now it's time for our two fallen angels to get to work… _

Dean Winchester? Maybe.

Kubrick shakes his head to clear it of that gravely inhuman voice. Damn demons. They lie.

_See, you humans see better than you can think, and when you meatsuits see Winchester, all regal and angelic and shit, you're gonna think that he's here to save you, but he's not…_

Everybody knows that they lie. But sometimes they tell the truth, too.

The sky overhead is dark with this peculiar reddish tint. Looks like it could pour down raining at any moment, but Kubrick's pretty sure that whatever would pour out of the clouds would be blood, more than likely. He stands there with his fingers curled around the door knob, his shotgun in his other hand as Creedie hefts up that gallon jug of holy water.

It's too damn quiet outside. Too damn quiet, but they can't just stand there and they sure in hell can't leave. Hell's bitches are coming down the road towards this place, and they've got nowhere else to go.

Kubrick takes a deep breath and turns the knob, looks out blinking into the reddish light of what should be mid-day.

One of Bobby Singer's dogs sits there in the yard grinning at him. It's a big mutt. Rottweiler, Kubrick thinks. He doesn't know the dog's name, but as soon as he realizes the animal's eyes are filled with pitch blackness, Kubrick realizes none of that matters.

_**000**_

Dark stands up on the hill hip to hip with Ronnie. Well, Tia Maleficum, really. She's got Ronnie's arm draped loosely around Dark's waist, and her being a dude's not so bad after all, but damn, he really wishes she had let him find her a chick body instead.

The field around them is packed with hundreds of possessed people. Dark doesn't know where half of them even came from, and quite frankly doesn't care. Some of the black-eyed ones move around the perimeter of the field setting up sigils and runes for transport. Tia can transport the entire group anywhere she wants to, but there are rituals to be observed. It takes a hell of a lot of power to move an army like that, and fifty of the possessed meatsuits will have to be sacrificed to provide power for the trip.

Well, you can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs. Dark, quite frankly, doesn't give a damn. He's got his wings, That's all he needs, all he cares about, all that matters.

They're surveying the troops, and it is pretty damn obvious why some of these idiots were caught a long time ago and sent back down. And stayed there.

One of the demons picked this little old lady to possess. Her eyes glow jet black, which is a really freaky effect in contrast with her frail body and that bright silver hair of hers. Personally, Dark would have gone for something a little sturdier, but he supposes beggars can't be choosers. The demon inside Granny looks around with this weird stretched smile on her face as it cackles to itself.

It's just as well. Most demons don't care if they wreck their meatsuits or not. When the curtain goes up Dark figures Granny's good for fossil fuel.

"Am I gonna have to work with him?" Dark quirks an eyebrow at her. Reminds him a little too much of that Renfield dude from Dracula. Either the Gary Oldman one, or the one with Bela Lugosi. Hell, he can't remember. "I really _don't_ wanna work with him."

Tia laughs. Dean's a damn good soldier, able to work alone (doesn't mean he likes it, though) or work as part of a team. Dark's the other side, a diva, a winged psychopath with lethal combat skills. It's what makes him such a prize, and he's very much aware of that fact.

"You don't have to, dear heart. I want you to go fetch your better half."

Dark snorts. "Adin? Better than me? Please." Dark rolls his shoulders as his brown leather wings spread open. At last. A chance to fly free and alone and ditch these earthbound losers.

Tia pats his arm. "You know what I mean. When the humans see how he looks they'll think Heaven has sent an angel to save them. You don't mind playing _your_ role, do you, dearest?"

"He's the Judas goat." Dark rolls his eyes. "I got the good part."

"Well, get along, then. You don't want Adin to have all the fun then, do you?"

_Hell no._ Dark takes off from a standing start like a bat out of hell.

_**000**_

…_my boys…_

His mind's playing tricks on him. That's _all_. It wasn't Dad._ Couldn't_ have been Dad.

…_so damn proud of both of you…_

He doesn't trust the random stuff inside his head. those bits and pieces that come from nowhere like that.

_Angels are watching over you, Dean,_ Mom said.

_Not likely. I believe in what I can see._

He vaguely remembers sunlit clouds, a grassy hill, and John Winchester.

_I believe in you, kiddo. God believes in you, even when you don't believe in yourself. _

It didn't seem real then, and it doesn't seem real now. Besides, he's got to steady himself, hold onto all the memories he's gotten from Sam.

Good --

… _I've been following you around my entire life! I mean, I've been looking up to you since I was four, Dean...studying you, trying to be just like my big brother. _

or bad --

_That's the difference between you and me. I have a mind of my own; I'm not pathetic like you._

-- he's got to hold onto all of that in that fractured headspace of his, hold on just long enough for Bobby to put him down permanently.

The top of the Sears Tower shimmers and flattens out into what looks like a helicopter landing pad, complete with a painted black bulls-eye. It's a really cool special effect, and if it weren't for the fact that everything was about to go to hell he could actually enjoy the fact that he can do things like this.

Dean doesn't wonder where he or Sam ever saw this, he just goes with it. His wings beat slowly as he touches down, a perfect landing. He kneels there in the center of the bulls-eye with Sam's head against his chest.

It's time. Time to get started. Time to end this.

Dean closes his eyes and reaches out and upwards, until he pushes free of the headspace, past that too bright blue sky overhead. The path above is clear and quiet. No tricks, no traps. Not yet, anyway.

_Bobby?_

_Dean. _Bobby's tone is quiet, resigned.

_I'm sending Sam out right after this. You ready?_

Bobby sighs deeply._ Yeah, kid, I am. _

_Thanks, Bobby._

_Don't thank me, Dean. I'm sorry it has to be this way, son._

_Take care of yourself, Bobby._

Dean comes back to himself as easily as he left. He brushes Sam's hair back from his forehead. Kid really needs a haircut, but Dean supposes that'll be the least of his worries soon.

_Don't be mad at me, Sam. Please, don't. _

He doesn't expect an answer, but Sam gives him one anyway.

_You're a jackass, you know that? _

Figures. Sam's always been stubborn like that, too.

_You're inside my head, dude,_ Dean thinks mildly. _What 'cha doing in there, Sam?_

_You got inside my head first, remember?_ Sam huffs. _Dean, don't do this. Call Bobby off. We can do this together._

_No. _Dean shakes his head._ This is the way it's gotta be. I'm the oldest. I know what's best, Sam._

_I was wrong. You're not a jackass. You're an idiot. We're stronger as a family. As a team. You know that._

Dean feels himself waver. Maybe. Just maybe. He was so damn sure moments before. He's less than himself without Sam, and they both know it. Maybe they can…

The air above is filled with a low buzzing sound as something small and hot sizzles through the air at them. Dean's wings react almost instantly, folding around them in a protective mantling gesture. Dean's feathers brush gently over the small of Sam's back.

_Sky's on fire,_ Dean thinks dully. _Bastard set the sky on fire…_

Pellets and droplets of hot yellow fire rain down on the rooftop. The sky's darkened to a peculiar murky yellow color. It's not a torrent, more like a drizzle. Dean gets it. Azazel's raining fire, just enough to keep him grounded.

Red flame splatters against Dean's icy blue feathers like raindrops. His wings are dotted with soot and scorch marks. Burning embers slide off, bright and smoking on the concrete.

Dean feels his heart speed up, banging against his chest like it wants _out_.

**_"HEY, DEANO?"_**

The voice is like the roar of thunder from down below. There's a smile in that voice, bright and sharp and cheerfully homicidal.

_**"CAN YOU COME OUT AND PLAY? SAMMY CAN COME TOO. I WON'T HURT HIM."**_ A pause, then: _**"YEAH, I'M LYING. YOU KNOW THAT, RIGHT?"**_

Sam feels a massive upward jolt through his entire body. Fiery raindrops curve through the air all around, but none of it touches him. At first he thinks that he and Dean have taken flight once more, but then Sam looks down and he understands.

Dean's alone on the helipad, kneeling right smack in the middle of that black bulls-eye. The concrete around him is littered with black smoldering spots, bright reddish orange sparks that burn too brightly. Dean's wings have curved back behind him now. They're scorched and singed around the edges. Dean's jaw tightens as he stares up at Sam.

Sam knows that look. It's grim and determined. It's defiant and stubborn as hell, and it's classic Dean Winchester.

_Said I'd get you out safe and sound, and I meant every damn word of it. _

_Dean, no…_

_Goodbye, Sam. _

Everything blurs around him as he's sent skyward, faster than before.

_Bobby won't pull the trigger if he thinks I haven't made it out,_ Sam thinks frantically. _I have to play possum. I have to…_

It's what he'd_ like_ to do, but it doesn't work that way. He hits the dark cloudy edge of that fake blue sky a moment later. A wave of warmth –_ body heat – _rushes over Sam, overwhelms him, as he jerks back to himself. His eyes blink open and he draws in a great whooping lungful of air that cuts into him like razors.

He's fucked up again, he knows he has, and even as he turns, awkward, nearly crying, his voice breaks as he looks Bobby in the eyes. Sam's eyes shift to the large gun in Bobby's hand and where Bobby has it pointed, muzzle pushed up against the space right between Dean's eyes.

"Bobby, don't- -"

Bobby pulls the trigger.

_**000**_

Adin opens his eyes and laughs.

Nothing happens.

The weapon is jammed and the startled look on the human's face is priceless. Adin glances over at Sam Winchester, and his eyes narrow.

_You tricked me,_ that look says. _You tricked me, and it's my turn now._

Singer pulls the trigger again and Adin rolls his eyes as the bones in his broken left wing heal instantly. He's bored already. Adin sharpens the feather edges, and his left wing lashes out, plunges into the man's mid-section, past skin and bone, slicing open internal organs.

Adin's blue wing tip protrudes out the other side of Singer's back, razor sharp and merciless. Adin twists his wing slightly, causing even more damage, then he pulls out smoothly and flicks his wing tip, splattering Bobby Singer's blood and guts on the floor and walls.

Bobby staggers back, and the gun falls from his suddenly clumsy fingers. He presses his hands on his belly, tries to force the gaping wound closed again.

It doesn't hurt.

He's been sliced open from his collarbone to his belly button, and it doesn't hurt.

Adin turns and crosses the distance between him and Sam in a heartbeat.

It's raining outside. He can hear it, and he stupidly looks out the window, expecting to see raindrops on the window pane. Nothing.

Bobby stares down at the blood pouring out of his body, and he wonders how the rain got tinted so red.

He's leaving this life, he can feel it, and he curses himself, for not being fast enough, for failing Dean, for leaving Sam at the mercy of that winged thing that looks just like his brother.

Bobby stumbles back against the wall, hard enough to jolt his body, but there's so much pain anyway that he hardly feels it. The slide down is in slow motion then, and it takes forever for his ass to hit the ground, but he finally gets there. He's numb. Everything's soft, wrapped in dense white cotton.

Bobby stares dully as Adin chokes Sam with one hand, lifts him off the floor with little effort.

_So tired. Can't stay awake. Can't…_

Bobby blinks as his head bobs downwards. He jerks back up again on the next blink. It's dark around him now, and that's to be expected. He's dead, right? He _knows_ he's dead. Darkness comes with the territory.

And off in the distance there's that damn white light he's heard so much about.

It takes another second or two for his eyes to adjust. There's someone kneeling in front of him. He can't make out the features just yet, but then everything snaps into crystal clarity, and Bobby huffs a tired laugh.

Hell, he'd always known he would die someday. The only surprise here was why John Winchester would be the one to greet him on the other side.

_**000**_

_**The curtain rises on the Last Great Show on Earth on Friday. **_


	20. The house lights dim

_**Chapter 20 - The house lights dim…**_

A/N: I blame RL for the delay. Glad to have found a job after all these months, though, so I can't complain that much.

_**Disclaimer: **_Don't own 'em, darn it.

* * *

_**000**_

A bolt of lightning jags through the darkening air at him. Ground burst, and it doesn't even come close. Dark laughs out loud as he jukes left. Damn Ursi Taku's in the area.

Thundercloud thing never did impress him as being all that smart; after all, he and the Fixer managed to fool their sorry asses without much effort. He does a high speed roll to avoid the next bolt that comes from the ground, and when he laughs he does it loud enough so they can hear him.

Dark's leather wings slice through the air like the proverbial hot knife through butter. He's nearly a blur as he rockets through the darkening red sky. Might be showing off, but it ain't bragging if you can do it. He's sleek and deadly, and there's nothing out here with wings (that punk Adin included) that can even come close. Dark loves flying the same way Dean loved driving the Impala.

Static electricity curves along the contours of his wings, over his tight muscles. It prickles his skin, but it's nothing he can't handle. He's not something to be pampered, not like that damn Nephilim.

Dark's the best part of the entire plan. He's the prize, and he knows it. He's the one that will lead the wet work, the carnage, and that's fine with him. He always has been a hands-on kinda guy. Way too many humans in the world anyway. It's time for some massive cut-backs.

Adin's shallow. A pretty toy with frilly wings. All he's got going for him is his appearance, that sandy blonde hair, those golden eyes and those stupid-ass feathered wings of his. Ice blue overlaid with robin's egg blue. Could that be any more gay?

Bobby Singer's place is directly below, and Dark frowns a little as he makes a pass over the yard. He relaxes once he realizes that the wards that Singer bastard put out are no longer in place. Adin _finally_ did something right.

Dark casts around with his senses, reaches down into that dusty little frame house on the lot, and he's surprised as hell when Adin's mental signature comes back all arrogant and bloody-minded. Dark gets a past image of Adin skewering the old hunter with his wings, and Dark grins.

Well, _hell_, he really didn't think the punk had it in him.

Dark stretches up into the sky over the junkers in the yard below high enough to get a clear glimpse of the highway. Cars and trucks scattered all over both lanes. He can see and hear hundreds of possessed humans coming through the woods, headed for Singer Salvage Yard. They tumble through the woods, through the brush, move over any and everything in their way like a black wave, regardless of the physical condition of the host body. He can hear the crack of bone as arms break and finger bones shatter, and still they keep on coming. Dark cocks his head to one side as he picks up the slight sound of said bones healing, slipping back into place. Bastards have learned a few new tricks along the way.

Dark stares down through the roof of the house and sees Adin's fingers dig firmly into the soft underside of Sam Winchester's throat. That makes Dark feel all warm and tingly inside. He cuts the connection with a snap. Adin kicking Sam's ass? That's something Dark wants to see up close and personal.

Time to collect the feathered freak and get going.

His attention's directed downward, so that's why Dark doesn't notice at first. By the time he does it's way too late. That prickly feeling sliding over his skin suddenly bites into him, deeply, almost into his core. His muscles spasm uncontrollably. His back arches painfully and his shoulders twitch uncontrollably. The smooth rhythm of his wings stutters, goes choppy, frantic. His brain shorts out as his electrical system's overloaded in one intense arc of blue electric energy.

The last thing Dark hears is laughter, as thousands of electric blue eyes open up in the murky sky around him, and the Ursi Taku grabs him up like a possessive child reclaiming a lost toy.

_**000**_

Bobby blinks as he sits up straighter. John kneels there looking at him with this smartass look that's so much like the expression Bobby's seen Dean wear countless times. The kid came by it honestly.

"Am I dead?" Bobby blurts out.

John snorts. "Do you wanna be?"

"You mean to tell me I got an option? Hell no, you damned fool." Bobby looks down at himself and there's no blood, no gore. His clothes aren't slashed anymore, and he's not in any pain.

Bobby looks around, and there was a time when he would've thought all this vast darkness would have scared the shit out of him, but it doesn't. It's comforting somehow. In the foreground, behind John's back, that impossibly bright white light pulses slowly, steadily. It's not far. Bobby figures he could get up and walk into it if he had to. Got unfinished business though, so he doesn't want to if he has any say in the matter.

"Well, all right then." John nods. "Been keeping my eye on you, Singer. I've seen how you treat my boys. Thanks," John adds quietly.

Bobby just nods back. "Now what? You here to escort me to my final reward?"

"You could say that." John just kneels there. He brushes the palms of his hands together. Slowly. And he doesn't move.

"Well?" Bobby huffs impatiently. Damn fool's waiting for something. Bobby can't tell what.

"In or out, Winchester? What's it gonna be?"

John shrugs as he sits down all the way. "You in that big a hurry, Singer? We got time."

"Time?" Bobby's nearly dumbfounded by John's casual tone. "What, do you get stupid once you die? Is that it? Didn't you _see_? Sam's in trouble. And Dean's--"

"We got time."

_**000**_

Sam's gone. Safe. It won't be long now.

"_**WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING, IT'S NOT GONNA WORK." **_Azazel booms out from below. Dean frowns, closes his eyes against the noise.

_Hold onto it, you bastard_, Dean thinks to himself. _Hold onto it. I can do this. Just hold on…_

He can't control what comes to mind, so he goes with it. It comes to him with no rhyme or reason, in a jumbled rush.

"_I'm sick of Scabetti O's." _

"_I was sleeping with my peepers open?" Sam doubles over with laughter as he unfolds himself from the Impala's passenger side. A little bit more and he'd be on the ground rolling._

"_Well, you're the one who wanted 'em."_

Dean extends his wings to their full length, and his feathers tremble from the curved tops to the tips, as Dean shakes off the burns and the soot.

"_I almost smoked that old gal, I swear."Dean growled back. "It's not funny."_

"_You know, if you two want to get a room, just let me know, Dean." _

"_**I'VE ALWAYS LIKED YOU, KID. LISTEN, MAYBE WE GOT OFF ON THE WRONG FOOT. "**_

"Oh man, you should have seen your face, Dean!"

"_Whoo! Listen to her purr! Have you ever heard anything so sweet?"_

_**"SAMMY'S GONE AND YOU KNOW YOU'RE TOO DAMN WEAK TO HOLD ON." **_

More droplets of flame from above, and Dean closes his eyes, raises his arms as flame and burning embers fly through the air all around him. The red rain forms a ring of fire around him, swirling and flowing in the wind currents around him.

"_**YOU IGNORING ME, HUH, BOY?" **_

_Damn right I am. _

"_**REMEMBER BACK IN THE CABIN? REMEMBER THAT NIGHT WHEN YOU FIRST SAW ME INSIDE JOHN?" **_

_He's lying. Don't listen to him. Don't—_

"_**REMEMBER HOW YOU FELT? YOU WANTED TO KNEEL DOWN IN FRONT OF ME. YOU KNOW YOU DID."**_

There's a reason for all that damn sound and fury. It's a diversion, a distraction.

Dean hears it then. That slight crackling sound, the tinkle of sleet against closed glass windows. It's rising up towards him, and getting closer.

His wings beat the air once, then twice, as though they have a mind of their own. Dean clears the rooftop by inches.

They want _out. Up._ He forces himself down again, presses his bare feet against the painted concrete. The soles of his feet tingle, but it's too soon. He doesn't feel anything, not yet. It's just nerves, that's all, just nerves.

Dean casts about with his senses and there it is, a tidal wave of yellow glass surging up all sides of the building. He can sense Azazel in the street below, his face turned upwards, eyes blazing, smiling from ear to ear.

_Sam smiles. "I bet she kicked your ass a couple times."_

_Hold on. _

It's past the 103th floor now…

"_What's interesting is you guys never really look at each other at the same time. You look at her when she's not looking, she checks you out when you look away."_

_…hold on…_

"_It's just an interesting observation. In a, you know, observationally interesting way." _

…105…

"_This map is totally worth the five bucks! Hey, we've gotta go check out Johnny Ramone's grave when we're done here."_

_Sam smirks. "You wanna dig him up, too?"_

…106…

_"Bite your tongue, heathen!" Dean passes another memorial. "Oh, that's cool."_

…107…

_Hold onto it, hold --_

_You tricked me._

Dean's eyes widen in shock. It's not him. Not his thought voice. He sees Sam in the real world, hears Adin's thoughts loud and clear. _You tricked me, and it's my turn now._

He loses it. Dean curses himself, and he loses it. His grip on the red rain falters, and the embers bounce uselessly back into the sky.

The yellow ice surges up through the concrete, over the lip of the observation deck. Dean stumbles as it wraps around his ankles, pours up his body in one long wave. It goes for his bare skin, slides underneath his jeans, his hoodie.

The breath in his lungs is forced out as it wraps itself around him, follows the line of his body and shoulders up to his wings, freezing each feather in place beneath a glaze of thick yellow. He's gripped by the cold, frozen right down to his bones if he had any in this place.

Dean sees Bobby standing in front of him, a ghost image, staggering backwards, his eyes slack and already fading to eternal blankness, and it's all wrong, there's so much blood coming out of Bobby, and that's not the way it was supposed to be...

He reaches out towards Bobby, and it's no good. The yellow glaze has him now, a bird trapped in yellow amber. It freezes the air around him, slows up past his shoulders, up around his collarbone. It embeds itself around his throat, into his skin little by little, and he knows it's Azazel's doing.

"_**DAMN SHAME, ISN'T IT?" **_Azazel bellows cheerily._** "ONE DOWN, BILLIONS TO GO. ADIN'S DRIVING, BUT IT WAS YOUR BODY THAT DID THE DEED, DEANIE."**_

Dean shudders, but not from the cold. "B-Bobby?"

_**000**_

Kubrick stops and stares at the dog. He can't remember the damn mutt's name, and for a moment he wonders why he's even bothering trying to remember it. The dog grins at him, that smile even reaches those pitch black eyes. It's a jolly grin, a kind of _Hey there, I've been waiting for you boys, and just so you know, now that you're here I'm gonna tear you limb from limb_ kind of grin.

There's another thump from the front of the RV, on the roof, and Creedie freezes as he stares up at the roof. Something's walking around on the roof of the RV, and from the sound of it whatever this is has four legs. Singer had at least two dogs out in the yard last time they were here.

Kubrick shoots Creedie a look, and Creedie shrugs. "Well?"

"Forward, not back," Kubrick says tightly. He tastes fear in his mouth, heavy and metallic, and swallows it down as his heart speeds up.

Another shrug. "Good enough." Creedie unscrews the cap on the gallon jug of holy water.

Kubrick raises the shotgun as he flings the door open wide.

Whatever it is on the roof runs across, over their heads to get to the door. The Rottie makes a sound halfway between a growl and a laugh as it lunges up the stairs.

_**000**_

Gordon pulls the black SUV over on the side of the road. He stares at the driveway alongside Singer's place and laughs out loud.

There must be a God, or someone else he can thank for all of this. Maybe the Dude Downstairs.

He recognizes Kubrick's RV. Couldn't miss the damn thing if he was struck blind. Gordon sees this large black eyed mutt run across the roof towards the door. Damn dog's possessed, and right then and there Gordon decides that if anyone is gonna maul the Jesus Guy, it's gonna be him, and no one else. He guns the SUV forward, fishtails in a cloud of dust as he pulls up onto the driveway, and the surprised look on the demon dog's face is worth the price of admission.

Gordon grabs up that gun in the seat next to him, the one with that odd bell-shaped muzzle. Sense memory kicks in just then; the body he's in hefts the weapon, aims and fires in one smooth motion.

The recoil's a bitch, but the muscles of his new body deals with it, fine, no problem. He holds it steady. The net deploys in mid-air, and it catches the dog in a jumble of legs suddenly gone awkward. The dog yips and its mouth opens just enough for the demon to make its exit into the dark red sky above.

Kubrick's shotgun goes off inside the RV. Gordon hears the hiss and sizzle that he recognizes as holy water splashing against possessed skin and fur. The Rottie squeals and backs out the doorway in a cloud of sulfur.

Gordon sneers at the demon as it runs by.

Kubrick swings towards him with the shotgun, and Gordon freezes. "Hey! Hey! I just took care of the one on the roof for you." He keeps his hands where Kubrick can see them. Kubrick wavers but he doesn't lower the shotgun. Creedie steps into the doorway with the gallon jug of holy water and Gordon tries not to smile to himself. He knows instantly what's gonna happen next.

…_spiritus amae prenstos amine manina…_

The splash of holy water in his face feels cool against his skin. And thanks to the invocation, nothing happens.

"Sorry," Creedie mutters as he caps the jug. "Had to make sure."

Kubrick lowers the shotgun and Creedie relaxes just a little.

Gordon allows himself to grin then. "No problem." They're both dead men walking and they don't even know it.

Hell yeah, it doesn't get any better than this.

_**000 **_

_**Next: The curtain rises…**_


	21. And the curtain rises

A/N: Thank you! Thank you to the folks who read and reviewed, the ones who just moseyed over here to look, the lurkers, everybody!

Disclaimer: No, I don't own them.

* * *

_**Chapter 21 - And the curtain rises…**_

_**000**_

He comes awake instantly, and they can feel it in his skin as he goes from blank to tense in a heartbeat. Hands tighten on him, fisting his hair, grabbing his wrists, handfuls of his wing leather. They press down, put him on his knees like a tethered animal in some open air market somewhere. Fingers grope all over his body, an arm curls around his throat and his chest.

Dark snarls angrily as his eyes flicker open. He's not used to being manhandled. It's a new experience for him, and being helpless like this fuels him. He just wanted to kill them before, now he wants to dismember them all, spread their body parts over the landscape like wind blown leaves. Now he wants to annihilate the demons inside the meat suits, turn them into pale grey dead smoke.

They're in the woods a half a mile away from Singer's place, and possessed humans sit in the grass all around them. They're perched on the rocks, on tree branches overhead.

One of the possessed puts her mouth to the shell of Dark's ear. He turns his head around just enough to catch a glimpse of her eyes. They're electric blue, not black. Huh. These bastards have learned all kinds of new tricks. "You were our pet before you were hers, boy."

"Fuck you."

He expects to be punished for that, and that's exactly what happens. Everything around him goes blinding white as the electric shock rips through him. He comes out of the white out moments (seconds?) later, lying sprawled out on the ground, and they yank him back up onto his knees. There's a strong smell of singed hair and leather in the air, and Dark muzzily wonders if it's him.

"We had a deal." Another of the Ursi Taku possessed draws near, too close to Dark's face. Dark snaps at him, flash of white teeth, and the man backs off a little. "An agreement."

"Liked hers better." Dark spits blood into the dirt, and he laughs at the sight of it. This isn't right. None of this is. He doesn't bleed. That's what he makes others do.

"You were supposed to tell us what was being planned. You gave your word."

"Are you kidding me?" Dark snorts. "You really as dumb as you look? Or do you think _I_ am? I was your toy, remember? Bought and paid for."

"Bought and paid for…" one chirps, and they all pick it up. The phrase rumbles out of hundreds of mouths, with the same inhuman inflection.

He growls as the fingers entwined in his hair tighten their grip and his head is forced up and back.

Dark blinks tiredly. He catches sight of the figure standing before him, and his eyes narrow.

This is something new.

She stands about eight feet away, in a swirl of bluish white cloudskin. A new possessed, the ultimate one, and Dark can tell that she wears her possession proudly.

_She was wide open for this_, he thinks to himself. _Damn fool wanted anything to take her, so she'd forget _and that's about as alien a concept to Dark as compassion and mercy is.

Her shoulder-length brown hair floats lazily in the air around her. Her eyes gleam bright blue, and her lips twitch upwards in a smile, as though she's forgotten how and has to learn all over again. She's dressed in a red and black plaid shirt, blue jeans, and scuffed brown work boots, and her skin is lit up from the inside by flashes of lightning.

Her voice is like a rumble of thunder.

"Boy," she says quietly.

…_boy…_

They all laugh as they drag him back onto his feet.

…_little boy…_

The grass underneath her feet burns to a blackened crisp as she walks towards him.

…_our pet… _

Dark knows that face. He knows _her_. He stares at her face, relaxed now, serene and peaceful, and he remembers the last time he -- the last time _Dean_ -- saw her. She looked tired, worn, like she was one step away from putting a pistol in her mouth and pulling the trigger.

"_Jo's out hunting. I'll lose her too before this is all over. Ash, the Roadhouse, all gone." She laughed, a sour, defeated sound. "I don't know what to do with myself, Dean. I don't care about any of this anymore."_

He remembers her name. Dark remembers how Dean felt that day, nervous, helpless, out of sorts. This was something he couldn't hunt down, couldn't fix with a few words of Latin.

Dark didn't give a damn then, and the only reason he cares now is that he senses that he's about to enter a world of hurt, all thanks to her.

Maybe he should have pushed Dean to "help" her. Dark remembers looking at her neck and betting it wouldn't take much to snap it like a twig with his bare hands.

"Ellen Harvelle," Dark says out loud and her smile gets a little wider.

Ellen stares Dark up and down. "You're not all of him, but you're part of him."

"I'm the best part," Dark growls roughly.

She nods. "If you say so." She idly runs her fingers in the air over his broad chest. A small arc of blue electricity dances in the air between her fingertips and his skin. Dark shudders as the hairs on his body rise up and his flesh ripples with goose bumps.

"I'm not…your damn…pet."

"You are. Now and forever, you are." When she steps into his space his heart skips a beat, but not in a good way. It's hard to breathe. He's being held tightly, with no room to maneuver. He hates this.

"You were always ours. You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for us. They usurped our rights to you." Each time Ellen speaks Dark sees flashes of soft blue light in her mouth. She smiles again, and he knows exactly what the bitch is up to, exactly what's about to happen.

Ellen grinds her body against his slowly. Blue lightning crawls over her skin, fills the space between the two of them. It leaches into Dark's skin, but that's not the worst of it. She covers his mouth with hers in a parody of tenderness, breathes him in, breathes out electric blue light and clouds that push down his throat, that threatens to fill him up, push him so far down into his skin he'll never find his way out again.

It seems like years later when she pulls her mouth away.

"Is my touch too much for you, my pet?" Ellen whispers.

Dark can't answer. The full-throated scream that rises from his throat blocks out everything else.

_**000**_

They enter Singer's place quietly. Kubrick takes point. Creedie and Gordon take up the rear. It's so goddamn funny Gordon has to force himself to keep a straight face. He's gotten pretty good at it. They hear noises from the woods behind the yard. Sounded like lightning, and screaming, then silence. The silence in the yard itself is deafening, the calm before the storm, just before all hell well and truly breaks loose.

Gordon loads up with guns and other weapons before he follows them inside. Kubrick and Creedie just stand there, watching. They think he's gearing up for whatever they're going to face inside.

They don't realize that some of those party favors are for them.

Now it's just a matter of seeing Sammy again, and Dean. Kubrick, Creedie and Singer can join in and they can all have a nice little talk before Gordon starts the festivities for real.

_**000**_

"_You stupid ass! What did you do? What did you do?"_

"Bobby…" Dean whispers to himself. He's gone. Bobby's gone.

"_You actually watch daytime TV? It's terrible."_

"_You made a deal… for Sam, didn't you? How long did they give you?"_

" _What is it with you Winchesters, huh? You, your dad, you're both just itching to throw yourselves down the pit."_

The air around him tightens its grip, glazes his skin, slick and yellow.

"_I talked to your doctor," Sam answered sadly._

"_That's my point. Dad brought me back, Bobby. I'm not even supposed to be here. At least this way, something good could come out of it, you know? It's like my life can mean something."_

"_**I CAN FEEL YOU LEAKING, DEANO. ALL THAT WASTED EFFORT, ALL THOSE MEMORIES SPILLING OUT OF YOU." **_

"_That fabric softener teddy bear, ooh I'm gonna hunt that little bitch down."_

"_**SAM'S BEEN GONE WHAT, LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES, AND YOU'RE DONE ALREADY?" **_

Harder to breathe now, can't catch his breath as he's squeezed even tighter. It locks him in solidly, and that's just what he was hoping for.

"_**I EXPECTED MORE OF A FIGHT OUT OF YOU THAN THAT, BOY. BELIEVE ME, IT WON'T BE SO BAD. WE'LL BE ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY IN HERE." **_

Dean doesn't even have breath enough to groan out loud as the cold sweeps over his skin. It hurts like hell, but then again he expected it to. He closes his eyes against the pain.

The afterimage of Bobby Singer lying dead and gutted on the floor of his own living room is burned into the blackness underneath his eyelids.

When Dean opens his eyes again his eyes blaze with greenish gold color.

He pulls the red rain back down around him with a thought. Fire swirls madly in the air as the currents around Dean increase in speed and size. The embers caught in the circle double and triple, in side and number. Down below, less than half a block away, Azazel's eyes narrow as he stares up at the Tower.

That's something new. And Azazel knows_ he's_ not doing it.

The Demon can sense Dean, can practically taste and feel the younger man's skin through the yellow glaze. Dean's skin is smooth and cool to the touch. Azazel tastes salt, sees golden flame coursing through the boy's muscles.

Dean knows Azazel's tuned in. The corners of Dean's mouth twitch upwards into a smirk.

"Believe _this_, you son-of-a-bitch," Dean whispers.

The red rain turns golden in mid-air. The ring of fire collapses with a roar, ocean waves surging against a rocky beach. Dean is surrounded by a corona of flame, and the entire sky is lit up with bright greenish gold light that blinds Azazel where he stands.

_**000**_

Oh God, there's so much blood, all over Bobby, the floor, the walls…Sam knows Bobby's dying, but he lunges forward anyway. He can see it in Bobby's eyes as the older man staggers backward. Bobby's eyes grow blank, distant, as he hits the wall and slides down it slowly.

Adin is suddenly_ there_, gripping Sam's throat with his right hand, pushing him back and up on his toes. Sam's hand flashes out, straight for Adin's face, but Adin catches Sam's fist with his hand and squeezes. The pain paralyzes Sam, nearly brings him to his knees.

Adin smiles, shakes his head. "Did you really think you could fool me like that?"

"You killed…you killed Bobby," Sam grates out.

"He's nothing. A human. Don't worry about him. I'd worry about yourself, if I were you."

Sam stares into that face, those golden eyes, and he doesn't see anything of Dean in that face, in those eyes. It's over. Dean's gone for good, and now Bobby is too.

"You gonna kill me? Go ahead. Do it."

Adin shakes his head, and Sam sees the damn's thing's eyes actually soften. "You're my brother. I'm not going to kill you."

The grip on his throat tightens. Sam's back arches as energy flows into his skin. It's Adin. Sam can feel him, feel Adin's pride at having done what Father told him to do. Sam feels sadness and some anger directed towards him personally, and he hates that. He doesn't want Adin's compassion or concern, he'd rather have hatred.

_I'm going to help you see the light,_ Adin whispers inside Sam's head.

He'll lose it all. Everything it means to be Samuel Winchester. _Everything._ All the memories, the good and the bad...

Sam has the sensation of being picked apart, laid bare. It's a gentle, almost hesitant motion at first, but it's still a violation.

Sam struggles, pushes back. The pressure increases almost to the point of being painful, and then mercifully everything fades to black.

_**000**_

Bobby wants to ask John how it felt being dead, and what hell felt like. Any other time he would do just that, but all hell is breaking loose elsewhere, both boys are in trouble, and there they sit in the darkness like they're at a bus stop waiting for a damn bus.

John cocks his head slightly to one side. He raises his right hand, palm up, and Bobby sees that the skin of John's palm glows, a soft bright white glow. Bobby can almost see sigils of some sort in John's skin, where his life lines would have been.

Bobby stares at the symbols for a moment. They seem familiar somehow, almost on the tip of his tongue, but he can't get it.

John huffs. "Time for you to go, bud."

"What? _Now?_"

"Yeah. Now. Say hello to my boys, Bobby. Tell them I'll be seeing them soon."

John places his palm firmly against Bobby's forehead, and all Bobby can see is this brilliant light.

At first he thinks that he didn't have to get up and walk into the light after all.

Whatever this is fills him up from the inside out. Rays of light stream from his eyes and mouth. It doesn't hurt but he can feel himself expanding, and the last thing he remembers is where he's seen those sigils before, as he blinks out of the darkness in a snap of brilliant white light.

John sits there for a moment longer. He looks at Raphael's resurrection and healing sigils on the palm of his hand and shakes his head in amusement.

It helps to have friends in high places, and that's a fact.

_**000**_

Azazel staggers backwards.

Something like runny egg yolks rests on his cheeks and he knows his eyes have melted and boiled in their sockets. Should have expected it, should have known the damn brat wasn't down for the count yet.

In the long run it doesn't matter. None of this does.

Azazel collects himself. His eyes come back first, blank yellow balls that harden into murky yellow, then his eyelids, and through the bright light he sees that greenish yellow flame that the boy created sweeping down the sides of the Tower, eating away the yellow glaze coating the building.

"Clever boy."

The upper floors of the building are a blackened husk by the time the flame reaches ground level. The flame winks out, digging a huge circular moat all around the base. Azazel reaches out with his mind and tries to crystallize the air again, but nothing responds. The building and the moat are a dead zone, and nothing he does effects it.

"Such a clever boy," Azazel whispers as his eyes narrow. Something's in the air all around him, a presence that needles at his skin, prickles him. It's familiar, and it's extremely pissed. The mood is murderous, and Azazel actually smiles.

He cranes his neck back and sees Dean hovering thirty feet above the top of the Tower. Dean's wings beat slowly, in time with his heartbeat.

Dean stares right back at him, and it's obvious he's not leaking anymore. Azazel can't read him, can't pick anything up but this feeling of intense hatred that should scorch the air around him.

Their eyes lock, murky yellow against brilliant green gold.

"Is that all you got, _boy_?" Azazel hisses.

Dean throws his head back and his arms wide to the sky, and the heavens above splits in two. He glows star bright, and the light pushes downward, hammers into the building with a force that shakes the ground. Azazel stumbles backwards. Everything slows down, and he sees every detail: the floors pancake into each other, clapping together before disintegrating into fire, dust and debris. It goes on like that for 108 stories, and it's quick, takes only a couple of breaths before the Tower's a pillar of golden flame in the dark night sky.

Azazel realizes Dean's not done yet.

That golden light streaks upwards, into the night sky, at the same time that the shockwave hammers into the ground around the Tower, and the rumbling doesn't stop. If anything it intensifies, shaking, rumbling. The ground cracks underneath Azazel's feet, Yellow glass and asphalt break and crumple. The buildings around him collapse in a long line, one after another, like a house of cards.

The entire headspace is shaking, coming apart at the seams, and that's when Azazel realizes that he's royally screwed.

_**000**_

Bobby opens his eyes.

He comes awake instantly. For a second he feels split right down the middle, wide open. The moment passes, and he looks down at himself for confirmation. No blood, no gore. He feels damned good as a matter of fact.

He sees his pistol on the floor near the wall. He could get to it, but if it's been disabled, then the damned thing's useless anyway. It's stupid to challenge this bastard empty handed, with no guns, no weapons. It's stupid, but it's the only thing Bobby can think of. He suddenly has thing very strong feeling that he won't need the gun.

It's crazy, and doesn't make a damn bit of sense.

Bobby decides to go with it. He looks over at Adin and Sam and growls softly underneath his breath.

He has work to do.

Bobby gets up easily, and neither man sees him move forward until it's too late.

"You get your damned hands off him," Bobby snarls. The thing wearing Dean's body jerks around and stares at him wide-eyed, and right then and there Bobby decides that this one, unlike Dean, would make a piss-poor poker player.

_**000**_

_Father will be proud of me,_ Adin thinks to himself. He's gotten to the business at hand, taken out that annoying older hunter, and now he has Sam again. Now he can teach his wayward little brother exactly who and what he really is, without interference, without --

"You get your damned hands off him."

Adin turns in the direction of the voice. His wings twitch restlessly behind him. He's almost bored with this.

Another one. Another annoying human. They come out of the woodwork like cockroaches. If he has to kill every last one of them, he will. Gladly.

When he stares into Bobby Singer's face Adin stops short.

Everything stops.

_No._

"I said let him go, you son-of-a-bitch."

Adin's fingers around Sam's throat loosen, and that can't be happening, he can't stop just because this…this _human_ tells him to.

He stares the man up and down. No blood. No cuts. Nothing.

"I killed you," Adin whispers roughly, and he's not even aware he's said it out loud.

Bobby huffs. "Huh. You didn't do a very good job of it."

Pressure builds up in the space behind Adin's eyes. It pushes against the bone of his skull, and he staggers a little. He can't see the old hunter anymore, he can't see Sam crumpled on the floor next to him.

Adin can't see anything but green eyes and golden flame. He smells burning, tastes dust in his mouth. He can't understand it.

He can't stop it.

The pressure in his skull rises to a crescendo, bright and all consuming, and the only thing Adin can do is scream.

_**000**_

I expect to post "The Last Great Show on Earth, Act I" by the weekend. Wish it could be sooner, but RL is going to be kind of hectic this week. If you got a minute, please let me know what you think of this chapter.


	22. The Last Great Show On Earth, Act One

_**A/N: **_This is a long chapter, as befits the start of the Show. Also, the views and opinions that Dark expresses concerning a certain James Bond movie is all his own, even though I happen to feel the same way. I do like Paul McCarthy, though.

_**Disclaimer: **_I know I don't own 'em. You know I don't own 'em. Must you torment me with this cruel knowledge?

* * *

_**Chapter 22 – The Last Great Show on Earth, Act 1**_

The Fixer's eyes flash blue, like lightning on a distant horizon. She can hear Dark screaming, so she knows he's been taken. The Fixer cocks Ronnie's head to one side as she listens. Dark's scream is more rageful than fearful, and Ronnie smiles a little.

He's strong, her favored one, despite his human quirks and stubbornness sometimes. The day he began his lessons in spellwork, he started small at first, but moved on and up soon after that. From simple levitation to countermeasures to transport spells, she'd never seen anyone catch on as quickly as he did.

She casts outward with her senses. The Ursi Taku horde has greater numbers. They've closed the pathways up from hell in South Dakota so that only their followers can come topside. The rest of Azazel's group has to fall back, to other locations in other states, find another way to come to the surface.

Damn humans. They always assumed that when Hell came to earth demons would be united against them. That just wasn't so. Just another cosmic joke, misinformation spread by the other side.

She can hear Dark's rough whisper inside her head.

…_.quae ab illo inventore veritatis… _

Tia knows her boy and knows exactly what he's planning then.

…_et quasi architecto beatae…_

The Fixer directs her demon horde to cluster together in a tight bunch. They look at her, puzzled. It's not what she told them to do before, but this isn't a democracy. It's no questions asked or die.

They do as she says, eight hundred of them crowding together in that tight space. She casts a protection spell, one that buzzes and snaps in the air like scratchy black electricity all around them, and they wait.

_**000**_

Uriel turns the air around them murky with his disapproval. "He doesn't believe," he says shortly.

Castiel nods. "I know."

"He has no faith," Uriel mutters darkly. "He didn't believe even when his human father told him."

"That's true."

Another nod. "Are you questioning the plan?"

"You know I'm not. Still, to put everything on_ this_ one's shoulders. He's willful. A disbeliever, and Nephilim besides."

"Mysterious ways, brother."

"I suppose. He's Chosen, even with all his faults. If he wins…"

"_If_." Castiel spreads his wings gloriously wide. "It's just getting started."

_**000**_

Dean thinks of Bobby staring sightlessly at him, his life's blood staining the carpet underneath him. He sees Adin driving his body, one wing dripping with blood, and the smile on Adin's face --_ his face --_ makes Dean's blood boil.

It has to stop. Right here, right now.

He's losing it now, bits and pieces fading away. He can't remember who his high school English teacher was anymore, can't remember the name of the first girl he ever kissed. Can't even remember the name of the town where he and Sam were before the crossroads bitch took him from that basement. Dean rifles almost frantically through the memories (_Caleb, Pastor Jim, Blue Earth, Cassie_) searching for the fragments that'll do him the most good.

"_Bobby, this book…I've never seen anything like it," Sam says._

"'_Key of Salomon'." Bobby answers gruffly. "It's real deal, alright?" _

That's it. Not gone. Not yet. Dean breathes a sigh of relief as he spreads his wings wide. He pours it on, sends all his energy out into the headspace. He sees the Key of Salamon in his head, the sigils and circles, the intricate drawings and diagrams. It hurts like a bitch in his skin, and he ignores the pain. He sees Azazel down below, growling, screaming and hissing.

Bastard sounds afraid, really scared, and for the first time in a while Dean actually smiles.

_**000**_

The earth tunes up for the show. She clears her throat. In the rest of the world she's silent. In the continental United States she screams like a banshee.

People and animals respond in different ways.

Dead fish turn up by the thousands, off the southern coast of California, along with blue whales, dolphins, killer whales, walrus, sea otters, and the bloated corpses of several giant squid the size of cruise ships.

An apartment building in Chicago, Illinois burns to the ground with over two hundred fatalities. Firefighters reported that the tenants in the building refused to leave. The victims smiled and embraced the flames.

The Mississippi River turns blood red, from Cairo Illinois all the way down through St. Louis, on to the Gulf of Mexico.

A decorated member of the New Orleans SWAT team goes on a rampage, patiently killing seventy eight people from a rooftop with a rifle before blowing his own head off. He leaves behind drawings, sketches of a dark figure with wings.

Several skyscrapers in downtown St. Louis and Chicago are damaged when hundreds of doves and pigeons slam into the glass walls of the buildings. Shards of glass falling to the sidewalks below decapitate eighty seven people in the bustling lunch-time crowds.

Thirteen people are killed in Modesto, California, stung to death by Africanized bees.

Road rage takes on a whole new meaning when a tractor trailer driver on I-45 along the California coast decide to play bumper cars. Fifty seven people are killed. The trucker, a Camilla Ferris out of Las Vegas Nevada, is finally captured and subdued by police. When cops finally pull Ferris out of the bullet-riddled cab of her truck she babbles about black smoke and men with yellow eyes.

The temperature in New York City drops sixty degrees in eight hours; snow falls.

In Montana twelve people stop their cars on a highway overpass and jump off, falling to the roadway below. The death total reaches thirty and climbing.

Shoppers at a Wal-Mart superstore in Dayton, Ohio turn violent and dismember several store employees.

Unseasonably warm weather in the nineties surges up into Canada, around the Great Lakes. Vancouver British Columbia swelters in 100 degree heat.

The time for small signs and omens is _over_.

_**000**_

Bobby sees it. He's looking Adin right in the eyes when it happens. Dean's not the one driving that body. Bobby knows that, but he stills feels sick to his stomach. He remembers what Dean told him.

_I'll do what I can to slow them down, give you a chance. _

Kid was true to his word.

The right side of Adin's face sinks in slightly, just enough to turn half of those perfect angel features bruised purplish black. Capillaries in Adin's right eye burst and that golden eye color is submerged in a river of bright red blood.

Adin staggers forward, a few stumbling steps, and his remaining good golden eye focuses on Bobby in bewilderment and confusion. He can't understand this. Doesn't know why this is happening.

_Getting soft in your old age, Singer,_ Bobby thinks to himself. Never mind that moments before this…this _thing _actually laughed as it skewered him with those razor sharp feathers. Damn it, Dean might not be driving now, but that's still Dean's body, and Bobby hates that it had to come to this.

Adin sways on his feet for a few more seconds, then his head rocks back and he goes boneless. His wings slump and he collapses to the floor, just as Sam struggles up.

_**000**_

…_going to help you see the light…_

Something deep inside Sam unfurls slowly, freed from the layers that bound it so tightly. His mind expands upward and outward. The sound reaches him first. It's ocean waves, the tide coming in and out, deep and rolling. He floats, rides the waves of sound and air around him.

The tide flows out to sea, and Sam remembers. He sees John and Dean, Bobby and Pastor Jim.

Sight and sounds flood into him. The taste of Jess's mouth, the smooth feel of her skin.

The rumble of the Impala's engine full out on the highway, Sam waking up with the sun on the horizon just past the Impala's windshield, and when he glances to his right Dean's there, a slight smile on his face, his profile lit up by the sun…

Bobby's place, the air filled with the scent of dried herbs and chili and dusty books.

Bacon and eggs in the morning, hot coffee, salt and sulfur and blood and flames…

The tide recedes, and Sam is pulled backwards, into his past.

His mother's heartbeat echoes in his ears.

He giggles as Amaris wriggles her toes in the sand. She stands there blinking in the sunlight with her hand over her gently swollen belly. He kicks a little inside her, and it's Amaris' turn to laugh.

It's not time to come out yet, but he makes his presence known.

_My boy,_ Azazel thinks to himself, _my beautiful baby boy. _

There's a vibration that comes from Azazel, one that unborn, unnamed Sam isn't quite sure about. He gets quiet each time father is around. He has no doubt his father loves him, but some young ones are always skittish around their male parents.

The tide goes out, and the little one hears an echo.

_If you walk out of that door then don't come back, Sam, John snarls. _

The tide slides back onto the beach, and none of that matters anymore.

They haven't given him a name yet. He hears some of the names they discuss, and he doesn't like_ any _of them.

_Ari, Matai, Arnon, Leshem..._

_No, no, no, no._ He kicks each time he hears one. The one name he likes the best is the one that's already taken.

_Adin. _

He knows Adin is his big brother. He can feel him each time the boy gently puts his hand on Amaris' belly. He can see him, and it's not fair. He's tall, freckled and tanned, bleached blond from the sun, and his ice blue wings are impressive and beautiful.

The little unnamed one's own stubby little wings flap weakly inside the womb, and somehow Adin knows. He laughs.

The tide goes out, and Sam comes back to the present.

"_What? You don't wanna go flying with your big brother, is that it?" Sam doesn't like that gleam in Dean's eye. _

The tide surges back onto the shore --

"Stop being so impatient, brother," Adin says with a grin. "I'll teach you how to fly when you finally come out."

What's out in the ocean is a faint echo, overlapping all else…

_"You're not afraid of flying, are you, Sammy? I fly just as good as I drive."_

Back again, cocooned inside his mother's womb. The unborn son gets bigger and stronger each day. It's nearly time, but there's tension in the air.

He doesn't like the way some of the others look at his mother. He doesn't like the thoughts he hears inside their heads.

…_carrying his child, too, that monster..._

She feels the tension in the air too. She _senses_ it, even though she can't hear like he can.

…_shouldn't be allowed to live…_

On the last day of his life the little unnamed one known later as Sam Winchester scents blood in the air. He kicks and fusses inside her, but Amaris doesn't listen, she can't hear him, and Adin's not around.

The baby screams as the mob gathers around his mother. When the first stone smashes into the side of her face he screams loud and long, but no one comes, no one hears…

…_no…noooooo…_

The tide goes back out to sea, and it all comes rushing back over Sam. His breath hitches in his throat and it's dark. His head is filled with her failing heartbeat, and he hears screaming, and he's not even aware that it's him, even when Bobby pulls him up on his knees.

Sam sees _Adin_--sees _Dean_--lying on his side nearby, his wings limp over him, still and quiet. Sam pushes Bobby away, lunges forward to be with his brother, and he can't hear himself sobbing brokenly, can't hear himself moan over and over "..don't leave me…please don't leave me…"

_**000**_

_**YOU'RE MINE,**_Azazel rages against the wind, fire and light. _**YOU WERE MINE BEFORE ALL ELSE, BEFORE HEAVEN FUCKED WITH YOUR HEAD AND TRIED TO USE YOU AGAINST ME. MINE! MINE! MINE!**_

The light's all around him, the damnable light. It melts the buildings into the ground. The air rips into Azazel's skin and his clothing. He's faded round the edges, but he's too much of a bastard to just lay down and die. Not just yet anyway. He whispers black countermeasures under his breath in reverse Latin, and the air around him quiets just a bit. It's only temporary, and the Demon knows it.

He stares up at Dean, and he hates the sight of the damn boy, more than he ever thought he could. Dean shines so brightly he eclipses that fake sun in this place. Storm clouds swirl and boil in the turbulent air all around him. His wings are outstretched, shining glowing blades of blue flame and golden light.

Azazel snarls at the sight of him. _He's not heaven born. He's not, _the Demon snarls under his breath._ They're using you boy, and you're too stupid to realize it. _It's not fair, it's not right. Dean wouldn't even exist if it hadn't been for him.

Azazel's skin bubbles and runs as he calls up protection in ancient Sumerian. He growls under his breath, dark rumbling sounds, as another tremor rumbles through the ground underneath his feet and knocks him onto his knees.

His hand brushes up against a large shard of yellow crystal. It's about the length of his forearm, as big around as his wrist. Azazel's working on instinct now, using everything he's got. This can't be the end, it can't be, but if it is then he's only too glad to drag Dean Adin down with him. He doesn't care about Adin. The boy's failed him again, obviously. Failed him, and bringing Dean down is something that Azazel has to do himself.

He grabs ahold of the shard, and he prays into it, forces his intentions deep inside the crystal. The yellow darkens, streaked with blackness and madness. The air around it buzzes and sizzles as Azazel digs his fingers into the slick yellow surface. He leaves his fingerprints burned into the yellow, and it's only fitting, just one more thing to impress into the damned thing.

The ground shakes and trembles, nearly dropping out from under his feet. Azazel's eyes turn blackish yellow as he stares upward into Dean's light.

Azazel throws the shard into the air, and it whistles as it tumbles end over end, streaking towards its target. Azazel wills it to fly high, wills it pierce Dean's heart.

This is all he's got, and it has to do.

_**000**_

Dark can still remember just about every marine lecture John Winchester ever gave Dean. If it was useful, which meant if it involved strategies and killing, Dark settled himself and listened intently.

"_I don't ever want to see you make a habit of this, Dean."_

…_voluptatem, quia voluptas sit, aspernatur… _

Dark coughs out clouds of blue light. There's a buzzing and rumbling in his head and chest, and the space around his heart feels like it's stuffed with razor sharp glass. His throat's raw, the air he breathes in is splintered like broken glass.

"_You have to pick your spots."_

…_aut odit aut fugit, sed quia…_

Ellen laughs, a low rumble that rattles branches, and shakes the ground.

"_You do the research, have a backup plan in case things go south." _

He's on his hands and knees now, his wings mantling the air around him. No one's holding him down. This bitch is standing a few feet away, and he wants to rise up, walk over and put his hands around her throat, but he has to concentrate. He has to…

…_totam rem aperiam eaque ipsa…_

Ellen turns around as Dark tries to put one knee up. "Sit."

His eyes widen as he sits back down immediately.

"Stay."

He does.

"Good boy."

_No…_

"You see? You do whatever I want you to do, and you do it so prettily."

…_soluta nobis est… _

Ellen tilts her head to one side, listening, and Dark freezes in place, not even daring to breathe.

"It won't be so bad. She's given you a taste of false freedom, let you run free for too long. You have no discipline. You have no…" Ellen hesitates. She frowns, searching for the right word, and she smiles thinly as it comes to her. "You have no_ fear_ of your betters. That's not a good thing for a creature like you. You need a firm hand, my little one. Someone who understands that mindset of yours. We'll take you in hand, teach you to remember your proper place in all this."

___Dark rolls his eyes wearily. "Bitch, will you stop with the monologuing?"_

___He blinks, and she's beside him already. _

_Nam libero tempore…_

"First lesson, then." Her finger traces along Dark's back, between his shoulder blades. His eyes widen as electric shock rolls over him, through him. He jerks forward and slams the open palms of his hands against the ground. His wings twitch uncontrollably as the muscles in his shoulder blades spasm wildly.

Ellen laughs. "We'll teach you to keep a civil tongue in your head."

His jaws clamp together so tightly he can actually hear his teeth crunch together, muscles thrum and vibrate as her fingers traces lightly over his skin. "I can touch you whenever I want. Where ever I want."

"_Sometimes, son," John rumbled in the past, "sometimes you have to take the hit."_

"…cum soluta nobis est…." Dark whispers, and in response, Ellen's hand slams down onto Dark's back.

She frowns, tries to pull away, but she can't.

She's stuck.

Dark smiles thinly through the pain. His dark gold eyes flash electric blue as he willingly takes all the energy in, concentrates, doubles and changes it. He spreads his palms wide as his hands glow with a reddish orange energy that surges and arcs between his fingers. It outlines his entire body, flickers and glows along the leathery edges of his wings. His wings lift up and out behind him.

The words inside this throat finally come out in full force, cracked and broken at first. He clears his abused throat and bellows the rest of the invocation out.

"…eligendi optio, cumque nihil impedit…"

Dark hooks his fingers into the ground, and the earth rumbles and growls in response.

Ellen Harvelle's stuck to the ground next to him, frozen in place. A corona of clouds and flashes of lightning surround the both of them. He can see the Lesser and Greater Ursi Taku, electric blue eyes in the cloudskin all around her, wide-eyed, deer in the headlights startled.

_Gotcha._

He needed a hell of a lot of power for this, more than he could ever hope to generate on his own. But if he could get the stupid sumbitches to get close, he could snare them, and he'd have all the power he'd ever need.

After all, he's just an insolent pet, a disobedient toy.

The possessed ones in the woods all around them have fanned out. Some of them climb the fence surrounding Singer Salvage Yard. Singer's wards won't keep them out anymore because Adin disabled them, but that's all right. Doesn't matter anymore.

They won't get away. None of them will.

"…quo minus id, quod maxime placeat, facere possimus, omnis voluptas assumenda est…"

Ellen's lips move slowly. "Stop." Hundreds of voices overlap, and Dark catches the first rising note of panic. Good.

"…maiores alias consequatur aut perferendis doloribus asperiores repellat…"

The spell expands ever outward from the ground underneath Dark. It grows and expands , turns from electric blue to reddish-orange as it engulfs the woods, crawls underneath the fence of the Salvage Yard, through the house on the lot, onward to the highway, and the woods past the highway where the Fixer and her group stand ready.

Ursi Taku demons in their stolen meatsuits are frozen in their tracks. The human flesh dies first, peeled away like discarded skins, running like melted candle wax into the ground.

The spell pulses twice as it receives the flesh and blood.

The demons are left exposed, thick black smoke. They try to escape, black clouds surging up into the sky, but they don't get far. The spell pulls them shrieking down into the ground.

Two miles away the Fixer smiles grimly, and anchors herself and her horde.

Everything slides sideways, out of the world, a large chunk of South Dakota disappears in a reddish orange flare.

_**000**_

Dean narrows his eyes, sees Azazel's crystal shard streaking through the air at him.

It's time then.

He wills the fire in the air around him to heat up a little. He has to make this look convincing, or Azazel will run. There's no time left. Clock's just about run out. He has to minimize the damage too. Won't work if he's too injured to follow through.

Dean hears John Winchester's low rumble of a voice in his head.

"I don't ever want to see you make a habit of this, Dean. You do the research, have a backup plan in case things go south. You have to pick your spots. Sometimes son, sometimes you have to take the hit."

The shard tumbles through the air, reduced by half. Dean braces himself, and seconds later something hits him in the chest, hard enough to knock the breath out of him. He's pushed backwards in the air by a few feet, and his wings beat almost lanquidly, compensating for the backwards push, cold fire outlining the edges of his feathers.

At first he thinks the bastard missed him entirely.

That fucked up notion lasts for all of one second. Dean glances down and he knows that's not true.

The end of the crystal sticks out of his chest, embedded in the grey fabric of that damn hoodie, beating in time with his heart. He touches the end of it (_slicksmoothandsharp_), and his fingers shake a little.

Huh. No pain. There's no blood.

Not at first, anyway. Dean stares dully as blood pools around the hole, runs down the front of the grey hoodie in long dark ribbons.

"You're mine, boy," Azazel whispers gleefully. Dean jerks his head around, searching for the source of the voice. He can almost feel Azazel's breath on his right ear.

Nothing's there.

"Mine. Always was, always will be."

Inside him. It's inside him…

"Come on down, Deano," Azazel purrs, "come on down and we'll have ourselves a nice little father son chat."

One heartbeat…

Dean's sight goes yellow, bright, hard and blinding.

…two heartbeats…

His muscles seize up. His wings scoop air uselessly once, twice, and there's no power, nothing to keep him aloft anymore. He loses altitude almost immediately as he turns over on his side, his wings trailing out behind him. He's in freefall, fading into black.

The last thing he hears is Azazel's laughter, loud and triumphant.

_**000 **_

Dark cracks his neck first one way, and then the other. His shoulders and neck are all cramped, and that space between his shoulder blades hurts like a bitch. It's nothing he can't handle.

He's very pleased with himself. He whistles to himself as he gets to his feet.

_What does it matter to ya_

At first he doesn't recognize the tune, then it hits him. Paul McCartney. Wings. Okay.

_When ya got a job to do  
You got to do it well._

Ugh. Dean would tear the knob off the radio trying to get away from songs like that. It's not one of Dark's favorites, either. He can't imagine Dean sitting there listening to Sir Paul, not unless Dean had been tied to a chair and _forced_ to listen. Mind you, there were plenty of times Dean actually_ was_ tied to a chair and tortured, but Dark can't remember any musical torture that went along with the bondage stuff.

_You got to give the other fella hell… _Dark grins to himself. _Well._ Song's not _all _bad then. He stretches his wings out, one after another. He remembers now.

_James Bond. Live and Let Die. Roger Moore._

_Yeech. _

Dean watched that one night in some crappy motel room up in Flint, Michigan. He was laid up, banged up after a run in with a particularly frisky 'geist. He couldn't find the remote but he was too sore and banged up to get out of bed and turn the sucker off manually. That was two hours out of Dean's life that he'd never get back. It was truly craptastic.

The ground rumbles, and Dark smirks. He wiggles his toes in the grass underneath his feet. The rest of Azazel's group is coming up. They'll be here very soon.

He sees Ellen Harvelle lying on her back a few feet away. She's still possessed, but there are fewer Ursi Taku around her now. The Greater ones sacrificed the Lesser ones, used them as a shield. Harvelle pushes herself up on her elbows, stares up at Dark, past him, her eyeline going up into the sky at his back. The remaining Ursi Taku around her blink dazedly as they take it all in.

The grass, the trees. Bright open sky.

The Mississippi River flowing behind them.

The Gateway Arch.

They're not in South Dakota anymore.

"You know what they say, bitch," Dark smirks as he stalks towards her, his wings raised to their full span behind him. "Location, location, location."

_**000**_

The light in the sky flares so brightly Azazel can't see. He shields his eyes with his hands, and everything goes negative, smeary gray and white shadows in his vision. He stands there panting, cringing. Dean could come down on him when he's helpless like that, swoop down from above and put an end to him once and for all.

It should happen like that. He expects it. The crystal was a Hail Mary play, a desperation move. It was all he had left.

When his vision clears the sky's still dark, storm clouds rolling and boiling overhead.

Azazel looks down at the street in front of him, at the base of what used to be the Sears Tower, and he can't help it. He laughs loud and long.

Dean Winchester's a broken winged bird, lying motionless and bloody amid chunks of concrete and debris.

It's a beautiful sight.

_**000**_

Well, they say write what you know about, so I intend to tear up the real estate here in good old St. Louis Missouri. Hope the Chamber of Commerce doesn't mind...


End file.
